Effect of clinician-patient communication on compliance with flupentixol-melitracen in functional dyspepsia patients

AIM: To explore whether clinician-patient communication affects adherence to psychoactive drugs in functional dyspepsia(FD) patients with psychological symptoms. METHODS: A total of 262 FD patients with psychological symptoms were randomly assigned to four groups. The patients in Groups 1-3 were given flupentixol-melitracen(FM) plus omeprazole treatment. Those in Group 1 received explanations of both the psychological and gastrointestinal(GI) mechanisms of the generation of FD symptoms and the effects of FM. In Group 2, only the psychological mechanisms were emphasized. The patients in Group 3 were not given an explanation for the prescription of FM. Those in Group 4 were given omeprazole alone. The primary endpoints of this study were compliance rate and compliance index to FM in Groups 1-3. Survival analyses were also conducted. The secondary end points were dyspepsia and psychological symptom improvement in Groups 1-4. The correlations between the compliance indices and the reductions in dyspepsia and psychological symptom scores were also evaluated in Groups 1-3.RESULTS: After 8 wk of treatment, the compliance rates were 67.7% in Group 1, 42.4% in Group 2 and 47.7% in Group 3(Group 1 vs Group 2, P = 0.006; Group 1 vs Group 3, P = 0.033). The compliance index(Group 1 vs Group 2, P = 0.002; Group 1 vs Group 3, P = 0.024) with the FM regimen was significantly higher in Group 1 than in Groups 2 and 3. The survival analysis revealed that the patients in Group 1 exhibited a significantlyhigher compliance rate than Groups 2 and 3(Group 1 vs Group 2, P = 0.002; Group 1 vs Group 3, P = 0.018). The improvement in dyspepsia(Group 1 vs Group 2, P < 0.05; Group 1 vs Group 3, P < 0.05; Group 1 vs Group 4, P < 0.01) and psychological symptom scores(anxiety: Group 1 vs Group 2, P < 0.01; Group 1 vs Group 3, P < 0.05; Group 1 vs Group 4, P < 0.01; depression: Group 1 vs Group 2, P < 0.01; Group 1 vs Group 3, P < 0.01; Group 1 vs Group 4, P < 0.01) in Group 1 were greater than those in Groups 2-4. The compliance indices were positively correlated with the reduction in symptom scores in Groups 1-3. CONCLUSION: Appropriate clinician-patient communication regarding the reasons for prescribing psychoactive drugs that emphasizes both the psychological and GI mechanisms might improve adherence to FM in patients with FD.

Efficient hydrolysis of hemicellulose to furfural by novel superacid SO_4H-functionalized ionic liquids

Novel superacid SO_4H-functionalized ionic liquids(SFILs) were designed and prepared in this work. The catalytic activities of SFILs were evaluated in xylan hydrolysis and xylose dehydration to produce furfural. Combined with the results of acid strength of SFILs characterized by solid-state ^(31)P MAS NMR, it was found that the catalytic performance of SFILs was positively correlated to their acid strength. The superacid SFIL [Ch-SO_4H][CF_3SO_3] displayed the best catalytic performance with more than 80% yield of furfural, and it was also obviously superior to usual SO_3H-functionalized acidic ILs, mineral liquid acids, and acidic resin Amberlyst-15 catalysts in catalytic activity under optimized conditions. In addition, the superacid SFIL [Ch-SO_4H][CF_3SO_3] could be easily separated from reaction system and reused at least five times without obvious decrease.