Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a common gastrointestinal complaint in the adult population worldwide; nevertheless, a few studies have magnitude this disorder among the medical students. The stress, lifestyle, and burdensome educational curriculum exposes this particular population to gastrointestinal disorders, GERD in particular. To the best of our knowledge, there is no information about the frequency of GERD in Iranian medical students. The current study is aimed to assess the Prevalence of GERD as well as its risk factors among the medical students.

In this cross-sectional study, the symptoms of GERD were investigated among 290 medical students using the frequency scale for the symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux (FSSG) at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from 2018-19. Additional information, including age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and studying grade, were entered in the checklist.

Among the studied population, 104 students (36.55%) presented GERD. Heartburn was associated with studying grade (P-value=0.022) and BMI (P-value<0.001). Esophageal regurgitation was related to BMI only (P-value<0.001). The logistic regression evaluations revealed overweight (P-value<0.001; OR:14.49; 95%CI: 7.29-28.81), obesity (P-value<0.001; OR:14.16; 95%CI: 4.38-45.74), studying at physiopathology course (P-value<0.001; OR:5.05; 95%CI: 2.07-12.30) and at stagership (P-value=0.007; OR:3.50; 95%CI: 1.41-8.64) were independent predictors of heartburn, while overweight (P-value<0.001; OR:8.33; 95%CI: 4.26-16.28), obesity (P-value<0.001; OR:54.87; 95%CI: 11.31-266.10) and studying at stager ship (P-value=0.024; OR:2.89; 95%CI: 0.87-6.22) were the predictors for esophageal regurgitation.

Based on this study, GERD was prevalent among the medical students, and factors, including BMI and studying grade, were predictors of its incidence