Frequency of Gastro-Esophageal Reflux symptoms in Healthy Children Determined by MM GERD Questionnaire in Mexico: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Background: GERD is a common disorder in children representing an important cause of consultation. Questionnaires have been proposed as a useful tool for primary care medicine but also as a cost effective option. However, it ’ s use still controversial in pediatric population. In this exploratory study, we have used the MM GERD Questionnaire in 2 elementary schools. Objective: An exploratory study to evaluate the MM GERD questionnaire in children of 5-17 years old of 2 elementary schools in Mexico City. Methods: A prospective, descriptive exploratory study including male and female children 5-17 years in which parents or tutors accept and sign ICF and willing to answer the 4 scale multi-dimensional GERD scale symptom (10 items), pain intensity scale (3 items); disability scale (3 items) and satisfaction scale (2 items). Results: A total of 223 children were included with 123 male and 99 female with mean age of 8.64 ± 2.7, weight 32.94 ± 14.17 kg, height 1.30 ± 0.17 mt and BMI of 18.67 ± 4.9. There was good construct validity among 4 scales measured with Pearson coefficient. The inter-item consistency (Cronbach’s co-efficient alpha) for the symptoms items, pain intensity items, disability items and satisfaction items were 0.41, 0.78, 0.87 and 0.4, respectively, demonstrating adequate reliability of the measure. Conclusion: MM GERD is a not a reliable questionnaire to explore the presence of upper gastrointestinal symptoms in healthy children from 5-17 years old. Thus several limitations, it is necessary to assess language, methodological and clinical validation of MM GERD to extrapolate these results into clinical practice.