Functional dyspepsia leads to more healthcare utilization in secondary care compared with other functional...

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are known to have a significant impact on patients' quality of life and lead to a greater healthcare burden. In this study we aimed to investigate whether this healthcare burden differs among various types of FGIDs in secondary care.

A retrospective study of consecutive adults with luminal gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in a secondary healthcare gastroenterology clinic was conducted. The frequency of FGIDs and differences in healthcare utilization among different types of FGIDs were explored.

Among 1206 patients with luminal GI disease, 442 (36.7%) had FGIDs. FGIDs patients were older (67 y vs 62 y, P < 0.001) with a higher proportion of women (61.8% vs 50.4%, P < 0.001) than those without FGIDs. Functional dyspepsia (FD) was the most common FGIDs (36.9%), followed by irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) (30.3%). A high healthcare burden (defined as over one GI endoscopy or imaging examination over 5 years, or  one or more unscheduled visit to general practitioner or emergency department or hospitalization annually) was observed among 53.8% of the FGIDs patients. FD was associated with a high healthcare burden (high vs low burden: 43.7% vs 28.9%, P = 0.001) while IBS was associated with lower healthcare burden (high vs low burden: 25.2% vs 36.3%, P = 0.012). On multivariate analysis, only FD was significantly associated with high healthcare burden (adjusted odds ratio 1.996, 95% confidence interval 1.117-3.567, P = 0.020).

Compared with other FGIDs, FD was the most common condition in secondary care, and it was associated with the greatest healthcare burden.