Population based study of noncardiac chest pain in southern Chinese: Prevalence, psychosocial factors and health care utilization

Table 1 Demographic data of study subjects (n = 2209)

		aCardiac	aNo
	aNCCP	chest pain	chest pain
	(n = 307)	(n = 147)	(n = 1755)
Mean age	38 ± 14c	42 ± 14	41 ± 14
Gender (M/F)	156/151c	58/89	723/1032
Smoking (%)	20.6	16.7	16.0
Alcohol (%)	10.2d	10.9	6.8
Aspirin user (%)	11.2	20.6b	7.7
NSAID user (%)	11.6c	13.9b	6.0
Coffee (%)	22.7	14.0	18.7
Education (%)
Primary or below	37 (13)	28 (21)	290 (18)
Secondary or matriculation	171 (61)	88 (65)	920 (57)
Tertiary	72 (26)	20 (15)	392 (25)
Total	280 (100)	136 (100)	1602 (100)
Monthly income in US$ (%)
None	90 (33)	60 (44)	539 (35)
1280 or below	78 (29)	34 (25)	364 (24)
1280 – 1920	39 (14)	22 (16)	254 (16)
1920 – 3200	40 (15)	10 (7)	228 (15)
> 3200	25 (9)	10 (7)	160 (10)
Total	272 (100)	136 (100)	1545 (100)
Occupation (%)
Professional and managerial	45 (16)	17 (13)	262 (16)
Technical worker	37 (13)	14 (10)	175 (11)
and craftsmen
Clerical work	29 (10)	16 (12)	243 (15)
Service and sales	32 (12)	11 (8)	157 (10)
Agriculture and others	18 (7)	8 (6)	87 (6)
Non-technical worker	8 (3)	4 (3)	33 (2)
Others (students, housewife,	109 (39)	66 (49)	637 (40)
retired and unemployed)
Total	278 (100)	136 (100)	1594 (100)

^aThe total in each individual cell may be smaller because of subject refusal,

^bP < 0.001 when compared to subjects with no chest pain,

^cP < 0.01 when compared to subjects with no chest pain,

^dP < 0.05 when compared to subjects with no chest pain.

Table 2 Prevalence rates and characteristics of chest pain in studied population

	Male	Female	Total
	(n = 938)	(n = 1271)	(n = 2209)
Chest pain over the past year (%)	213 (22.7)	241 (19.0)	454 (20.6)
Possible angina by Rose angina	57 (6.1)	90 (7.1)	147 (6.7)
Questionnaire or ischaemic heart
disease diagnosed by physicians(%)
Noncardiac chest pain-NCCP (%)	156 (16.6)	151 (11.9)	307 (13.9)
NCCP severity (%)
Mild	69	66	67
Moderate	27	32	29
Severe or incapacitated	4	3	4
NCCP frequency (%)
< once / month	75	76	76
≥ once / month	22	19	21
> once / weekly	3	4	4
NCCP location
Central	46	55	50
Left	44	37	41
Right	10	8	9

Table 3 Association of non-cardiac chest pain with other GERD symptoms over the past year

	NCCP	No chest pain	OR
	(n = 307)	(n = 1755)	(95%CI)
Heartburn and/or acid	50.5a	23.2	3.4 (2.6-4.3)
regurgitation (%)
Dysphagia (%)	4.1	2.8	1.5 (0.8-2.8)
Odynophagia (%)	7.1	5.8	1.2 (0.8-2.0)
Globus (%)	15.9a	5.3	3.4 (2.3-4.9)
Dyspepsia (%)	21.8b	14.0	1.7 (1.3-2.3)
Feeling of acidity	31.3a	16.5	2.3 (1.8-3.0)
in stomach (%)
Chronic cough (%)	8.3	5.0	1.7 (1.1-2.7)
Hoarseness of voice (%)	6.3	5.5	1.2 (0.7-1.9)
Asthma (%)	4.2	2.5	1.7 (0.9-3.3)
Pneumonia (%)	0.7	0.5	1.5 (0.3-6.9)

^aP < 0.001 when compared to subjects with no chest pain,

^bP < 0.01 when compared to subjects with no chest pain.

Table 4 Comparison between subjects with noncardiac chest pain over the past year who did and did not seek health care

	NCCP health care	NCCP non-health
	seekers (n = 131)	care seekers (n = 176)
Mean age ± SD	39 ± 14	36 ± 14
Female (%)	57.5a	42.8
Chest pain severity	39.2a	26.5
moderate or worse (%)
Chest pain once a	27.5	21.7
month or more (%)
Chest pain requiring days-off	35.3b	3.1
Presence of GERD (heartburn	67.5b	40.1
and/or acid regurgitation) (%)
Social life being affected	31.4b	6.2
Mean anxiety score	5.8	5.3
Mean depression score	4.7	4.2

^aP < 0.05 when compared to non-health seekers,

^bP < 0.001 when compared to non-health seekers.