Validation and results of a questionnaire for functional bowel disease in out-patients

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of patients and controls answering bowel disease questionnaires

	Irritable bowel syndrome patients	Functional dyspepsia patients	Organic disease patients	Patients lost to follow-up	All Patients^s	Control group
Number of subjects	55	17	37	14	128	50
Sex
male (%) : female (%)	18 (33) : 37 (67)	9 (53) : 8 (47)	19 (51) : 18 (49)	7 (50) : 7 (50)	56 (43) : 72 (57)	29 (58) : 21 (42)
Residence
rural (%)	34 (62)	8 (47)	23 (62)	6 (43)	73 (57)	18 (36)
Education
none or primary (%)	39 (71)	14 (82)	29 (78)	11 (79)	95 (74)	23 (46)
Age, median (mean, SE)	46 (49, 1.6)	58 (56, 3.3)	63 (58, 2.8)	54 (56, 4.3)	54 (53, 1.3)	50 (48, 2.5)

^sOf the 128 patients who agreed to participate and answered the questionnaire, no conclusive diagnosis was reached for four subjects and one person diagnosed as having both dyspepsia and organic disease was omitted from the study. The only evidence of a difference between the patient groups for the demographic variables was in the age distributions. ^*p < 0.05, chi-square ^**p < 0.0005, chi-square test

ISSN: 1471-2458