Frequency of GERD in women of childbearing age in Malatya region

Abstract

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is frequently seen not only in our country but also all over the world. GERD not only impairs health and quality of life, but also causes serious financial losses in the working population. In this study, our aim is to determine the frequency of gastroesophageal reflux disease among female healthcare professionals of childbearing age in our region. Questions were asked about demographic data such as weight, age, height, BMI, medical history, and gastroesophageal reflux of female healthcare workers, whose data were generated by us. The answers to the questionnaires were collected and evaluated retrospective. All participants in the study were women. This study was carried out on 1224 female healthcare workers of reproductive age working in Malatya Turgut Özal University training and research hospital. Approximately 1150 of the employees who were distributed questionnaires filled out the questionnaires. The mean age of the female healthcare workers of childbearing age was 30.01±5.38 years, between 19-50. The mean height of the healthcare workers was 1.64±7.8 meters, the average weight was 68.05±13.2 kg, and their body mass index (BMI) was 27.4±3.6 kg/m². The frequency of GERD in the study group was found to be positive in 24%. 38.5% of the healthcare workers had previously gone to the doctor with complaints of pyrosis and/or regurgitation. A significant relationship was found between GERD and stress, fizzy drinks, lying down after meals, and family history of GERD. There was no significant relationship between the smoking and coffee use and age of the participants in the study in terms of the presence of GERD.We think that gastroesophageal reflux symptoms are common due to stress, unbalanced diet, irregular sleep and lifestyle habits due to the COVID pandemic in the last two years due to the fact that the participants in the study were healthcare professionals. Among our healthcare professionals, both pyrosis and other GERD symptoms were found to be higher than some of the previous studies, similar to those in our country. We think that the reason for this is that the extremely stressful work of health workers in the last 2 years has contributed to this. As it is known, health workers have worked very hard in the last 2 years, they did not even use their annual leaves, even those who wanted to retire could not retire. We think that this stress environment may also contribute to GERD symptoms.