Publication:

The prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease and its association with various risk factors in a tertiary care centre in West Bengal

Background Gastroesophageal Reflux (GER) is the regurgitation of gastric contents and acid into the esophagus. Frequent and abnormal amounts of reflux leads to Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) which causes symptoms like heartburn, regurgitation, and /or other complications. In view of absence of any data on the prevalence of GERD from this part of India, the current population based study was conducted to study the prevalence of GERD and its association with various risk factors.

Methods In this community based prospective cross-sectional observational study, 500 patients from rural and urban areas of West Bengal were included during the one year period from July 2014 to June 2015.

Results Out of a total of 500 patients studied, the percentage of patients with GERD in our study population was found to be 31.3%. Out of 292 males enrolled for the study, number of patients with GERD was 66 (22.6%) as compare to females where the same was found to be 43.26% (90/208). The majority (68.2%) of patients had mild GERD, 18.5% had moderate GERD whereas only 13.3% of patients had severe GERD.

Conclusions The percentage of patients with GERD in our study population was found to be 31.3%. It was observed to be significantly associated with increasing Body Mass Index (B.M.I), smoking, the female gender, a sedentary lifestyle, dinner to bed-time interval of ≤2 hours, chronic NSAID use, and a past history of abdominal surgery.