Compliance With Antidepressant Medication in Treatment of Functional Dyspepsia

Compliance With Antidepressant Medication in Treatment of Functional Dyspepsia: A Randomized Comparison of Different Prescribing Behaviors

The study hypothesis is appropriate clinician-patient communication that provides explanations of the reasons for psychoactive drug prescriptions based on the generation of FD symptoms and the drugs' effects might improve compliance with psychoactive agent regimens among FD patients.

Antidepressive agents have been proved to be effective in the treatment of functional dyspepsia (FD) patients. However, one of the factors that limit therapeutic benefit is the poor compliance with prescribed drugs. The possible reasons for lack of compliance include the patient's health beliefs (e.g., that people who took such agents is possibly considered insane in China), lack of knowledge about antidepressants (that they are addictive or can be stopped on recovery), and aversion to side effects. The investigators propose to examine whether different clinician-patient communication methods could affect adherence to antidepressant drugs in functional dyspepsia patients.

Inclusion Criteria:

• met the ROME III criteria for FD;
• education level no lower than high school;
• Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) score > 8 respectively;
• absence of abnormalities in physical examination, laboratory tests (including a routine blood test, blood glucose, and liver function examination), abdominal ultrasonography and upper GI endoscopy within 6 months;
• absence of H. pylori infection

Exclusion Criteria:

• known allergy to omeprazole, flupenthixol or melitracen;
• any evidence of organic digestive diseases;
• reflux-related symptoms only (e.g., retrosternal pain, burning and regurgitation) or predominantly reflux-related symptoms;
• severe psychological symptoms that affected life and work;
• pregnancy or breastfeeding;
• recent myocardial infarction or cardiac arrhythmias;
• previous gastric surgery;
• use of PPIs, psychoactive drugs or other drugs that might affect gastric function within 6 months