Gender differences in gastrointestinal, biopsychosocial and healthcare-seeking behaviors in Chinese patients with irritable bowel syndrome predominant with diarrhea

Table 1 Demographic data of male and female patients with IBS-D

Variables	Male (n = 299) (95% CI)	Female (n = 191) (95% CI)	P value
Age (years)	40.0 ± 10.7 (38.8–41.3)	44.2 ± 11.5 (42.9–46.2)	< 0.001*
BMI (kg/m²)	23.8 ± 3.7 (23.3–24.2)	21.6 ± 3.9 (21.1–22.2)	< 0.001*
Education level (college and above %)	128 (42.8) (37.2–48.5)	57 (29.8) (23.3–36.4)	0.004*
Family economic status (well-off & above %)	157 (52.5) (46.8–58.2)	96 (50.2) (43.1–57.4)	0.644
Marriage status (married %)	245 (81.9) (77.6–86.3)	156 (81.7) (76.1–87.2)	1.00
IBS disease course (years) ^†	5 (8) (6.4–8.2)	5 (8) (6.5–8.7)	0.887

Data presented as number (%) or mean ± standard deviation (95% CI). Student’s t-test and chi-square test. ^† Data presented as median (interquartile range), Mann-Whitney test. IBS-D, irritable bowel syndrome predominant with diarrhea; BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval. *P < 0.05

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