No increase in prevalence of somatization in functional vs organic dyspepsia: a cross‐sectional survey Journal Articles uri icon

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abstract

  • AbstractBackgroundPsychological factors are associated with functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. Literature suggests that somatization is associated with functional dyspepsia (FD). However, the relationship between organic dyspepsia (OD), FD, and FD subtypes and somatization is poorly described. We aimed to examine this issue in a cross‐sectional study of secondary care patients.MethodsDemographic and GI symptom data were collected from 4224 adult patients via the Rome III questionnaire. Somatization data were collected using the patient health questionnaire‐12. Mean somatization score and number of somatic symptoms were compared between patients with organic and FD, and between FD subtypes using analysis of variance. The same comparison was undertaken for the proportion of patients reporting individual somatic symptoms.Key ResultsExactly, 783 patients met criteria for dyspepsia, of whom 231 (29.5%) had organic disease following upper GI endoscopy. Mean somatization scores and number of somatic symptoms were no higher in functional vs OD (p = 0.23; p = 0.19). In addition, while the prevalence of somatization in FD was relatively high, there was no difference in severity of somatization in FD subgroups.Conclusions & InferencesSomatization is associated with functional and OD to the same degree. Overall severity of somatization did not appear to vary according to FD subtype.

publication date

  • July 2015