Poor sleep quality (PSQ) prevalence in patients with functional dyspepsia (FD): a systematic review and meta-analysis

Functional dyspepsia (FD), a disease of the gastroduodenal tract, is one of the functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) characterized by postprandial fullness and epigastric pain not attributed to any underlying organic diseases. Sleep quality refers to individuals' satisfaction with their overall sleep, including sleep initiation, maintenance, duration, and feeling refreshed upon waking. Despite frequent associations between sleep disorders and FGID, comprehensive data on poor sleep quality (PSQ) in FD patients is lacking. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the occurrence of PSQ in patients with PSQ.

PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were systematically searched to identify relevant literature. All studies reporting PSQ prevalence in FD patients or sufficient data to calculate it were included. Pooled prevalence was calculated for all studies, and an odds ratio was determined for studies with a healthy control group. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses assessed the moderating effects of different variables. Publication bias was examined using funnel plots and Egger's test p-value. The work has been reported in line with AMSTAR (Assessing the methodological quality of systematic reviews) Guidelines.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that pooled the estimate of prevalence of patients with FD with PSQ. Based on 2138 FD patients, the pooled prevalence of poor sleep quality is 57.2% (95% CI: 37%-75.2%), I ² = 98.4%. The asymmetric funnel plot and Egger's test P-value indicated a significant publication bias for the pooled prevalence estimate. FD patients are at higher risk for poor sleep, with an odds ratio of 2.39 (95% CI: 1.86-3.06), I ² = 1.73%.

Poor sleep is highly prevalent among FD patients, who are more susceptible to poor sleep than healthy individuals. The findings of the study should be interpreted with caution owing to the high heterogeneity and the publication bias observed for the pooled prevalence. Future research should standardize diagnostic parameters and investigate other confounding factors like anxiety and depression to achieve more accurate estimates.