Determinants of Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease in Palestine

Gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is used to describe symptoms and changes of the esophageal mucosa that result from reflux of the stomach contents into the esophagus, which is affected by various lifestyle factors. Yet, it has never been investigated among Palestinian population. We aim to evaluate the potential determinants of GERD severity in Nablus district. A cross sectional study using a previously validated questionnaire was performed. A non-random purposive sampling technique was used of nearly 120 subjects from the outpatient clinics of three Hospitals and one private internal clinic in Nablus. SPSS software version 16 was used for data entry and analysis. Nearly 66.7% of the study participants were females while 34.2% were above 50 years old and 24.1% were between 20-30 years old. Among the Palestinian population, the number of family members, height, fatty food, coffee consumption and having antihypertensive drugs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) intake were related to GERD severity (p < 0.05; bivariate analysis). In multivariate analysis however, factors found to be significantly associated with GERD severity were only chest pain (OR= 0.09; 95% CI: 0.02‐0.52) and sleeping disturbances (OR= 0.05; 95% CI: 0.007-0.40). Patients showed an increase in the occurrence of GERD symptoms after they exposed to fatty food, coffee consumption and NSAIDs. Increasing public awareness, educating population about unhealthy life style and wrong eating habits are essential for an intervention steps.