ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Chest pain is a problem that primary care physicians commonly face and often unnecessary work-up is done because of its clinical importance of cardiac origin. There are various studies on the causative disorders of chest pain, but studies on young adult males are relatively few. Therefore, we conducted this study on the cause of chest pain among young policemen. METHODS: Diagnosis and classification of chest pain were made among 106 policemen who visited the outpatient department of family medicine at the National Police Hospital from March 1, 2002 to June 30, 2002. RESULTS: The causes of chest pain were musculoskeletal (55%), psychogenic (17%), others (15%), gastrointestinal (7%) and respiratory (6%), but none of them were cardiovascular origin. The nature of chest pain were stabbing (41%), sharp (22%), pressing (18%), squeezing (16%) and substernal discomfort (3%). The duration of chest pain were below 10 minutes (37%), 10 minutes to 1 hour (15%), several hours (20%) and several days (28%). The location of chest pain were left chest (61%), right chest (18%), precordial (7%), epigastric (6%), substernal (4%) and others (4%). The frequencies of chest pain were more than once a day (23%), once a week (26%), once a month (11%), once more than 1 month interval (17%) and first attack (23%). The aggravating factors of chest pain were physical strain (25%), coughing (22%), psychologic stress (16%), smoking (10%), weather change (8%), drinking (7%), resting (5%), and overeating (6%). CONCLUSION: Our study showed that unnecessary tests should be avoided and adequate treatment matched to their causes through exact and detailed history taking should be done, because the causes of chest pain among young policemen are mostly non-cardiovascular origin.