Authors: Olafsdottir LB, Gudjonsson H, Thjodleifsson B.

Institution: Iceland University Hospital, Hringbraut, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland. bjarnit@landspitali.is

Objective: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of functional bowel disorders (FBD) in a population-based sample and to assess FBD-related health care seeking and medication in Iceland.

Results: …Both symptom categories were more common in women and the prevalence decreased with age. No correlation with socioeconomic status was found. There was more than 90% overlap between the two diagnostic categories. Irritable bowel syndrome was found to be associated with depression, appendectomy and dysmenorrhea.

Conclusions: This population-based study shows a high prevalence of functional bowel disorders in Iceland and higher than reported in other studies that use similar criteria. It can be speculated that the reasons for this high prevalence are associated with special features of the socio-psychological profile of the Icelandic society.

Study link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16155326&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

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