Evaluating the relationship between environmental elements and geographical distribution of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Gilan province

Resumen

Introduction: Inflammatory bowel disease is among themost common diseases increasing rapidly in some countriesand Iran, especially in Gilan. Approximately 30000cases of IBD have been recorded at Gilan Gastroenterologyand Liver Research Center. It seems that genetic and environmentalfactors to be involved in this disease. The objectiveof this study is to investigate the relationship betweenenvironmental factors and the geographical distribution ofinflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Gilan province.Materials and Methods: This study is an applied studyin terms of objective and a library-field study in terms ofdata collection tools. The sample size was 10-year data ofGilan Meteorological Department from 2006 to 2016 and10-year data of IBD disease frequency recorded in Gastroenterologyand Liver Research Center of Razi Hospital ofRasht in Gilan province from 2006-2016.Results: Demographic characteristics, living place, typesof inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease(CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), gender, climatic factors(humidity, temperature, pressure, and precipitation) wereconsidered as independent variables and IBD disease wasconsidered as the dependent variable. Descriptive statisticsand Chi-square test were used by means of SPSS softwarefor data analysis at the significant level of p <0.05.Conclusion: According to the Chi-Square test, there wasno significant difference between demographic characteristicsand Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Therewas a significant difference between gender, living place,Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis. In 6 cities, there wasno significant correlation between the total number of patients,male and female patients and climatic factors, includinghumidity, temperature, pressure, and precipitation.