Prevalence, Characterization And Risk Factors Of Chronic Constipation Among Saudi Children: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Childhood constipation is a common gastrointestinal disorder worldwide and many factors have been associated with the occurrence of constipation. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors for chronic constipation among school-age children in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between February 2016 to May 2016 May. We selected the two largest cities: Jeddah and Makah in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. Children aged 7-17 years were recruited from 15 schools, using a random sampling technique in which all students have an equal and independent chance of being selected. A validated self-administered questionnaire on Rome III criteria for diagnosing chronic constipation and its predisposing factors was filled by each participant in a classroom setting. Results: Of the 9100 questionnaires distributed to school children, 7644 (response rate 84%) were completed and analyzed. Chronic constipation was present in 2459 (32.2%) with significant differences in constipation between girls and boys (77.6% vs 22.3%; p <0.001). The significant risk factors for chronic constipation included family history of constipation (OR=2.69, 95% CI = (2.33-3.09) and psychological/behavioral problems (OR=3.02, 95% CI (2.42-3.76). School toilet phobia, night sleeping <7 hours, homework >3 hours/day, omitting breakfast and exercise in school did not predispose the students to develop chronic constipation (all p < 0.001). The following variables were found to be significantly associated with chronic constipation; straining during defecation (OR = 30.15, 95% CI = (24.88-36.53), painful defecation (OR=18.41, 95% CI = (15.89-21.35), bloody stool (OR = 3.97, 95% CI = (3.16-4.99), and fecal incontinence (OR = 7.84, 95% CI = (6.49-9.47). Conclusion: Chronic constipation is a significant health problem among Saudi children. Exposure to stressful life events at school did not predispose the participants to develop constipation. Chronic constipation prevalence of 32.2% in study population warrants preventive measures such as health education and preventing childhood psychological insults.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".