ABSTRACT
Objective To study the association between clinical symptoms,psychosomatic factors and autonomic nervous function in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).Methods Thirty-four patients with GERD diagnosed by reflux disease questionnaire (RDQ) and endoscopy and 15 healthy control subjects were enrolled in this study.All the subjects were divided into two groups,one with normal scores of Zung's self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and Zung's depression scale (SDS) as GERD (-) and the other with abnormal scores of SAS and SDS as GERD (+).Reflux symptom score was recorded for both groups at the same time.Autonomic nervous function was assessed by their heart rate variability (HRV) on dynamic electrocardiogram (DCG).The time domain parameters analyzed included standard deviation (SD) of average R-R interval during 24 hours (SDNN),SD of average 5-minute sinus heart rate (SDANN),mean square root of the difference of adjoining two R-R interval (rMSSD),and proportion of the heart beats with difference of R-R interval more than 50 ms from the total heart beats (PNN 50),and the frequency domain parameters analyzed included low-frequency (LF),high-frequency (HF) and ratio of LF to HF.Results Average scores of SAS and SDS were significantly higher in patients with GERD than those in healthy controls (48?9 vs 38?6 and 48?11 vs 41?6,respectively,P