The relationship between functional dyspepsia and family function

Ahn, Moo Kyung; Lee, Sang Yeoup; Kim, Yun Jin

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Dyspepsia is a common problem Functional dyspepsia accounts for 40% of all causes of dyspepsia. In view of biopsychosocial medicine, family is an important social background that is the basis of health care. Therefore we studied the relationship between functional dyspepsia and family function.
METHODS
The 64 functional dyspepsia patients group and 64 normal control group who visited the department of family medicine, Pusan national university hospital from December 1996 to June 1997 were enrolled in this study. All were examined with gastrofiberscopy, abdominal ultrasonography, and liver function test. Functional dyspepsia patients were subgrouped into ulcer-like dyspepsia, dysmotilitylike dyspepsia, and nonspecific dyspepsia. Patients not having these symptoms were classified into control group. For evaluation of family function, we used family APGAR.
RESULTS
Among 64 functional dyspepsia patients, 50.0%(N=32) had ulcer-like dyspepsia, 26.6%(N =17) had dysmotility-like dyspepsia, and 23.4%(N=15) had nonspecific dyspepsia. Average family APGAR score was 5.83(+/-2.2) in the functional dyspepsia group, and 6.80(+/-2.4) in the control group(t-test, p=0.007). Among the functional dyspepsia group, moderately family functional subgroup was most common(53.1%), but among the control group, highly family functional subgroup was most common (6Z5%). Among subgroups of the functional dyspepsia group, average family APGAR score of dysmotility-like dyspepsia subgroup was lowest.
CONCLUSION
Subgroups of functional dyspepsia were as follows; ulcer-like 50.0%, dysmotility-like 26.6%, and nonspecific dyspepsia 28.4%. The family APGAR score of functional dyspepsia patients group was lower than normal control group.