Association of upper gastrointestinal symptoms with functional and clinical characteristics in the elderly

Table 2 Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of patients divided by the presence of upper gastrointestinal symptoms according to the upper gastro-intestinal symptom questionnaire for the elderly clusters in elderly outpatients

	No symptoms (n = 1768)	Yes symptoms (n = 1332)	P-value
Sex (females, %)	45.8	55.8	< 0.0001
Age (yr, mean ± SD)	72.2 ± 7.0	72.2 ± 6.9	0.8635
Marital status (married, %)	68.3	64.2	0.0185
Education (none/primary school, %)	75.8	78	0.1503
Body mass index (kg/m2, mean ± SD)	26.0 ± 3.6	26.6 ± 3.9	< 0.0001
Smoking status (current smoker, %)	11.2	13	0.1288
Alcohol consumption (%)	45.7	42.6	0.0957
Coffee consumption (%)	85.1	87.3	0.0743
Heart diseases (%)	29.3	33.2	0.0198
Hypertension (%)	63.2	65.3	0.2274
Vascular diseases (%)	13.6	16.6	0.0223
Respiratory diseases (%)	15.3	22.2	< 0.0001
Eye-ear-nose-throat diseases (%)	13.6	14.9	0.3103
Upper gastroenterological diseases (%)	20	44.8	< 0.0001
Lower gastroenterological diseases (%)	6.6	14.4	< 0.0001
Hepatic diseases (%)	5.6	8.1	0.0046
Kidney diseases (%)	4.5	5	0.4692
Genital-urinary diseases (%)	24.7	26.6	0.2434
Skeletal, muscle, skin diseases (%)	43.4	50.6	< 0.0001
Nervous system diseases (%)	5.3	6.5	0.1351
Endocrine-metabolic diseases (%)	22.5	22	0.7617
Psychiatric diseases (%)	12.6	21.6	< 0.0001
Number of comorbidities (mean ± SD)	2.8 ± 1.7	3.5 ± 1.9	< 0.0001
4 or more comorbidities (%)	28.7	45.3	< 0.0001
Drug consumption (%)	91.7	93.8	0.0285
Number of drugs (mean ± SD)	2.9 ± 1.6	3.3 ± 1.7	< 0.0001
3 or more drugs (%)	52.5	64	< 0.0001
Need of assistance in activities of daily living (%)	14.2	21.5	< 0.0001