Constipation in Iran: SEPAHAN Systematic Review No. 5

Background: constipation is physically and mentally troublesome formany patients and has adverse effects on their quality of life. the aimof the present study was to systematically review previous studies onthe epidemiology of constipation in iran.methods: bibliographic databases including pubmed, google scholar,and iranian databases including scientific information database, iranmedex, and magiran were searched to select studies that reported theprevalence of constipation in iran.results: overall, 10 articles met the inclusion criteria of the currentstudy. the prevalence of constipation in iran ranged from 1.4-37%,and the prevalence of functional constipation was reported to be 2.4-11.2%. gender, age, socioeconomic status and educational level seemto have major effects on this condition.conclusion: the prevalence of constipation is high in iran. there arevery few data available regarding the natural history, quality of life andrisk factors of constipation in our country. conducting populationbasedstudies is necessary to explore different epidemiological aspectsof constipation in iran.