Dear Editor,

Thank you for your interest in our article. We read your letter with great excitement. As you mentioned, numerous studies have shown (1, 2) that people with restless legs syndrome (RLS) also have a variety of comorbidities, particularly psychiatric comorbidities, in addition to the set of symptoms that was needed to diagnose RLS which highlights the importance of comprehensive perspective. This study specifically addressed depression while focusing on fatigue, quality of life, and the gastrointestinal system. This inevitably necessitated a certain amount of mention and focus on each parameter. For example, a discussion of gastrointestinal symptoms was complemented by a mention of the basic mechanism. One of our most important aims with this study is to offer ideas to other researchers for in-depth studies. We think many studies will be performed after this study that examine each parameter separately and devote more space to the mechanisms in line with the author’s suggestion. In addition, studies involving physicians specialized in gastrointestinal symptoms may be useful for examining such mechanisms in more detail in future studies. Therefore, we think our study also emphasizes the necessity of multidisciplinary studies. As you mentioned, it is perfectly understandable that we exclude the use of antidepressants. Beyond the fact that antidepressants can have quite adverse effects on the gastrointestinal system (3), it would be extremely biased to include antidepressant-using individuals in our depression-focused study. We agree with your criticism regarding the sample size, but we have also stated this as a major limitation. Analyses in subgroups such as patients using antidepressant were not possible due to the small sample size. However, future studies might be performed with RLS patients receiving antidepressant treatment. Thank you for writing this letter, which gave us the opportunity to clearly reiterate what we recommend for future studies as a result of our study.