DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2015.v03i03.0100

Pages: 1529-1533

Dysphagia refers to any disturbance in movement of food bolus from mouth to stomach. Dysphagia may have many implications for social and physical health; dysphagic persons often have malnutrition and airway infections due to aspiration, and their reluctance to eat meals with others may lead to social isolation. Base on this fact that dysphagia can affect all health dimensions, knowledge of basic information about prevalence and etiology of dysphagia seems necessary. The purpose of this study was estimate the prevalence of dysphagia among patients, who were in Zahedan hospital wards. In this retrospective descriptive study, all of medical profiles of hospitalized patients of educational hospitals in the Zahedan city in the second Half of 2012 were selected. Data regarding existence or nonexistence of dysphagia, etiology of dysphagia, prevalence of dysphagia in different age and sex, and prevalence of dysphagia in different wards of the studied hospitals were recorded and for analysis SPSS 16 software was used. Among 7298 medical profiles of hospitalized patients, 2.1% of total patients had dysphagia and there wasn’t significant difference between sexes regarding prevalence of dysphagia (P>0.05). The highest and lowest rates of dysphagia were observed for above 65 years old and between 0-19 years old, respectively. Also, the highest rates of dysphagia were in internal medicine ward. The results of present study suggest that speech therapist should be more aware to age and hospitals ward. With regard to higher prevalence of dysphagia in aging, and subsequent high risk of malnutrition and pneumonia, the more attention should be paid.