To analyze the risk factors and common misdiagnosed diseases between different age groups of hiatal hernia patients.

To retrospectively analyse 168 patients of hiatal hernia who were made a diagnosis and given treatment at Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region People's Hospital from July 2012 to December 2016, including 92 patients <60 years old (young and middle-aged group) and 76 patients ≥60 years old (old-aged group). Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse the risk factors between different age groups. And χ² tset was used to compare the common misdiagnosed diseases between the two goups.

High body mass index (BMI), eating too much, and eating before sleeping were the independent risk factors of young and middle-aged patients with hiatal hernia (P=0.013, 0.030, 0.015), and eating before sleeping, habitual constipation and chronic coughing were the independent risk factors of old-aged patients (P=0.024, 0.018, 0.039). The rate of misdiagnosis of hiatal hernia as coronary heart disease was highest in young and middle-aged group and old-aged group [21.7%(20/92), 28.9 (22 / 76)], but there was no difference in the two groups. The rates of misdiagnosis of hiatal hernia as laryngitis, bronchial asthma in young and middle-aged group were higher than that of old-aged group [19.6% (18/92) vs 9.2%(7/76), 13.0%(12/92) vs 6.6%(5/76)], and the rate of misdiagnosis of hiatal hernia as chronic bronchitis in old-aged group was higher than that of young and middle-aged group [10.9%(10/92) vs 21.1%(17/76)], the differences were statistically significant (χ²=10.332, P=0.001; χ²=7.911, P=0.005; χ²=9.614, P=0.002).

There were different risk factors and common misdiagnosed diseases between different age groups of hiatal hernia patients. Targeted prevention and treatment of hiatal hernia patients should be carried accoding to age, and the misdiagnosis of hiatal hernia patients could be reduced.