title: Rome III functional dyspepsia symptoms classification: Severity vs frequency.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Rome III criteria subdivide functional dyspepsia (FD) in the epigastric pain syndrome (EPS) and the postprandial distress syndrome (PDS) based on the frequency of the symptoms to optimize the diagnostic and therapeutic approach. However, it is unclear to which extent the frequency of the symptoms is related to their severity. Our aim was to explore the frequency and severity of dyspeptic symptoms and their relationship in FD patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Functional dyspepsia patients fulfilling the Rome III diagnostic completed a questionnaire that evaluated the frequency and severity of FD symptoms. The concordance between the severity and frequency categories was analyzed by means of spearman correlation and the concordance correlation coefficient (ρc).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the entire patient cohort (n=421), the classification of symptoms severity and frequency showed good concordance for all symptoms. In the EPS subgroup (n=….), the symptom severity and frequency score of epigastric pain showed a poor correlation (r=.28; ρc=0.07). The PDS subgroup (n=…) showed a good correlation for most of the symptoms. Due to its limited occurrence in this group, the correlation of the severity and frequency scores for epigastric pain is of little relevance (r=.79; ρc=0.58). The overlap EPS-PDS group showed good correlation for most of the symptoms, except for epigastric pain (pain r=.24; ρc=0.09).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the information given by the assessment of frequency and severity of PDS symptoms is comparable and hence one of the scores sufficiently identifies symptom pattern in PDS patients. In EPS patients, both the symptom frequency and severity should be taken into account as two separate entities.
authors.affiliation: Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID), KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Carbone
authors.affiliation: Gastroenterology, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Holvoet
authors.affiliation: Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID), KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium.|Gastroenterology, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vanuytsel
authors.affiliation: Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID), KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium.|Gastroenterology, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tack
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D000328:Adult; D004415:Dyspepsia / Q000145:classification* / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Rome classification; functional dyspepsia; symptom frequency; symptom severity