The self-evaluation of upper-gastrointestinal symptoms in Chinese patients with digestive disease: A multicenter questionnaire survey.

AIM: To investigate the self-evaluation of upper gastrointestinal symptoms in Chinese patients. To observe the role of patients' characters, such as sex, age, education background, and clinic visits, which might affect the self-understanding of patients.

METHODS

The nationwide cross-sectional questionnaire was administered to 3000 patients with upper gastrointestinal symptoms at 50 hospitals across 9 provinces in China. Questionnaire items covered four basic patients' characters and five major upper gastrointestinal symptoms.

RESULTS

A total of 2799 questionnaires (response rate: 93.3%) were analyzed. Only 35.29% patients could precisely understand the definition of dyspepsia. The misunderstanding of lower-gastroenterology discomforts is the major reason leading to low accuracy rate of dyspepsia. The accuracy rate of early satiety and postprandial fullness is 37.7% and 52.27% separately; they are most interrelated and easily confused concepts to each other. The accuracy rate of heartburn is 30.02%, while the location of burning sensation is the key aspect for misunderstanding of heartburn. The self-understanding of symptoms in patients was decreased with increasing age, and enhanced with higher education background and time of clinic visits. Gender is not the independent factor.

CONCLUSION

Based on the low accuracy rate of self-understanding of patients, this survey suggests that the gastroenterologists should re-evaluate the symptoms of patients during the clinical inquiry.