ABSTRACT

Introduction: Dyspepsia is relatively non-specific, and includes general abdominal discomfort, early satiety and bloating. Patients often ignore the condition and not present to clinic until more severe symptoms manifest, such as belching, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, and pain(Mahadvera , 2010). With a global prevalence of uninvestigated dyspepsia tending to be as low as 7% and as high as 45%.(Shaib ,2004). Methodology: This was a cross sectional study, which was exploratory and descriptive in nature, and employed majorly quantitative methods conducted among 130 medical students in Kampala International University Western Campus, located at Ishaka Bushenyi in western Uganda between July 2014 and October 2014 to determine the prevalence and characterization of dyspepsia among college student at Kampala international university western campus . Simple questionnaires were developed with the structured sets of questions which were administered to an appropriate respondent to find out the prevalence and characterisation of dyspepsia. All the students who consented to participate in the study were included in the study and those who declined to participate as well as those who were absent were excluded from the study. Results: In this study 125 participated, out of which 30respondents reported symptoms of dyspepsia and found that the prevalence of dyspepsia among medical student at KIU western campus was at 24% and majorly characterized by the epigastric pain and epigastric burning. Conclusion: This study concluded that the prevalence of dyspepsia among college students in KIU western campus was high and mostly characterized by epigastric pain and epigastric burning. And made a recommendation that, while the reasons for the relatively high prevalence rate of dyspepsia among college students from the KIU western campus remain to be fully determined, the data indicate that this condition is frequent among this population and deserves attention to promote both diagnosis and clinical management that may prevent potential damage caused by a chronic condition.