Impaired health-related quality of life in patients with excessive supragastric belching.

BACKGROUND: Excessive supragastric belching, sometimes called aerophagia, is a rare behavioural disorder in which patients belch frequently, up to 20 times a minute. This is perceived by the patients as disturbing and interferes with social functioning and is likely to affect quality of life.
METHODS: Twenty-one patients [11 male, aged 49 (28-78) years] with supragastric belching were asked to fill in questionnaires regarding the presence and severity of their symptoms, quality of life (short form-36) and the hospital anxiety and depression scale.
RESULTS: The most frequently reported symptoms were belching, epigastric discomfort and fullness whereas heartburn, epigastric burning, retrosternal pain, early satiety, nausea and vomiting were hardly mentioned. Compared with normative values, patients showed a decreased health-related quality of life for the domains social functioning (64.3 ± 17.8), mental health (67.4 ± 16.5), vitality (47.6 ± 20.3), bodily pain (58.9 ± 21.7) and general health (44.8 ± 19.8) but not for physical functioning (75.5 ± 21.5) and physical (63.1 ± 40.0) and emotional role (81.0 ± 35.9). The hospital anxiety and depression scale for anxiety (3 iqr 2-4) and/or depression (2 iqr 1-4) were not elevated.
CONCLUSION: In patients with excessive supragastric belching, health-related quality of life is significantly impaired, in particular because of impairment of social function and vitality. Furthermore, the symptom pattern observed in these patients does not resemble that of patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease or functional dyspepsia and anxiety disorders and depression are not prevalent in these patients.