Potentially Associated Factors with Irritable Bowel Syndrome among Medical Ain Shams University Students

Abstract

Prior data on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and potentially associated factors among university students are scarce in the Egyptian context. This study therefore recruited a sample of students at the University of Ain Shams, Egypt, to investigate IBS prevalence and associated factors and fill the identified research gap.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on all students from database of the Nutritional Assessment of Medical Students of Ain Shams University (NAMES-ASU) Project. 1225 apparently healthy students aged between 19 and 24 years during the period of April 2018 and April 2019 was obtained from the database and interviewed. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and excluding the dropout students, only 70 students were suffering from IBS and fit the criteria of Rome IV then comparative normal group was selected randomly to conduct a comparative study between those suffering from IBS and normal healthy students to find out the potentially associated factors among students.

The present study revealed the following results: • Among 73 IBS cases 100% suffered recurrent abdominal pain in the last 3 months of which 91.8% suffered from pain with defecation, 67.1% suffered from change in stool frequency while 93.2% suffered from change in