The Efficacy of Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of Functional Dyspepsia

Functional dyspepsia (FD) is one of the most frequent functional gastrointestinal disorders and is defined using the Rome IV criteria as any combination of the following symptoms: postprandial fullness, early satiety, epigastric pain, and epigastric burning that are severe enough to interfere with the usual activities and occur at least 3 days per week over the past 3 months with an onset of at least 6 months before the presentation. The purpose of this systematic review is to analyze all the relevant studies in the literature that investigate the efficiency of hypnotherapy in FD.

FD refractory to conservative treatment is a therapeutic challenge, and alternative treatment options are needed. Gut-oriented hypnotherapy has been reported an effective treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, but poorly tested in FD.

We performed a search in 6 bibliographic databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, and LILACS) using customized search strategies for each engine. The search strategy included the following terms: (hypnosis, hypnotherapy, hypnotherapies, hypnogenesis, hypnotism, hypnotist, hypnotical suggestion, suggestion, and mesmerism) and {[functional and (dyspepsia or dyspeptic)] or FD}.

Taking the aforementioned criteria into account, the result was a review of 4 articles analyzing the efficacy of hypnotherapy in the treatment of FD, published in the past 20 years. The initial search identified 398 articles, of which 37 potentially appropriate articles were reviewed. Of these 37 articles, 4 articles were included in the review. The benefits observed by numerous studies go beyond the field of digestive pathology, patients describing a general improvement in physical and mental health.

Current studies analyzing the efficacy of hypnotherapy in FD provide encouraging data, but additional randomized controlled trials are needed before a firm position on the effectiveness of hypnosis in FD.