Clinical Course of Functional Dyspepsia and Factors Predicting Outcome in Patients Receiving Medication-based Treatment

Functional dyspepsia (FD) is one of most common chronic gastrointestinal disorders. Several types of drugs were demonstrated to be effective in reduction or remission of symptoms and severity of FD, including proton pump inhibitors (PPI), Tricyclic antidepressant and prokinetics. However, the clinical course of FD after taking medication-based treatment was unknown. Furthermore, 20-50% patients remained persistent or worsening of dyspepsia symptoms after treatment. Previous studies have suggested psychological factors (eg. anxiety, sleep disturbance) were related to less improvement of symptoms in natural clinical course. However, there is limited evidence in terms of clinical and psychological factors for less improvement in patients receiving medication treatment for dyspepsia.