Relationship of functional dyspepsia with mental and physical stress

Background: Functional Dyspepsia is a globally prevalent illness, which although not life-threatening, displays a strong influence on the quality of life. Functional Dyspepsia is essentially chronic indigestion with no obvious physical cause. The objective of this study was to evaluate the frequency of functional dyspepsia and its association with mental and physical stress. It could have the same significant association as Irritable Bowel Syndrome has with stress.Methodology: The data were collected from 221 students from 3 medical colleges of Karachi, Pakistan. Subjects were asked to fill out questionnaires concerning demographics, lifestyle, and dietary habits. Rome III criteria was employed to identify functional dyspepsia and sub-sections of the Sadaf Stress Scale (SSS) was used to measure mental and physical stress.Results: Out of the 221 subjects majority were females (67.4%) with a mean age of 21.47 years. 34.8% of subjects were diagnosed to have functional dyspepsia, out of which around three quarters were females (68.5%). A moderate positive correlation was observed between functional dyspepsia and mental and physical stress.Conclusion: It is concluded from the study results that there is a high frequency of functional dyspepsia among individuals with mental and physical stress or functional dyspepsia might cause the stress.