Objective: Patients who complain of "heartburn" to their general practitioner tend to use the word to indicate a variety of symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in recognition of "heartburn" between normal healthy lay subjects (HS), patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), nurses, and physicians.
Material and methods: An anonymous questionnaire survey concerning "heartburn" obtained responses from 583 persons including 198 GERD patients (140 with non-erosive reflux disease (NERD) and 58 with reflux esophagitis (RE)) who were evaluated at Kawasaki Medical School Hospital and affiliated facilities, as well as 170 HS, 111 nurses, and 104 physicians. Subjects were asked to choose the option most closely describing a symptom that they would recognize as heartburn.
Results: Recognition did not differ between RE patients and physicians, whereas NERD patients did not recognize "regurgitation" or "burning sensation in the chest" as heartburn as often as physicians, while confusing "stomach ache" with heartburn. Significantly more NERD patients chose "stomach ache" than RE patients.
Conclusions: Differences in recognition of heartburn were noticed between HS, GERD patients, nurses, and physicians. RE patients and physicians showed similar recognition patterns among the descriptions of heartburn, whereas NERD patients differed from physicians and RE patients.