Introduction:

The intestinal inflammatory diseases represent an important problem of public health due to the increase in their prevalence and incidence worldwide.

Objective:

To identify the main risk factors associated with the intestinal inflammatory disease in elderly.

Methods:

An analytic cases and controls investigation of 60 years and over patients, with diagnosis and histological confirmation of some intestinal inflammatory disease was carried out. They were admitted to the Medicine Service of Saturnino Lora Torres Teaching Clinical Surgical Provincial Hospital in Santiago de Cuba, during 2015. The study group was conformed by 61 patients and the control group by 122 members (2 for each case), belonging to the family doctor´s office of the affected patients. In the statistical analysis the percentage for the qualitative variables was calculated and, in order to check the existence of any association, the chi-square test was implemented, with 95 % of confidence. Each variable was analyzed calculating the relative opportunity, with upper and lower limit intervals of confidence.

Results:

There was a causal association of 5.4 times more possibilities of suffering some intestinal inflammatory disease if the family history of colitis was present. Also, a significant association existed (p <0.05) between the family history of Crohn disease and the intestinal inflammatory disease (9.8 %), and it was 9.7 times more possible that some inflammatory disorder of the bowels appeared if inadequate foods were eaten.

Conclusions:

The risk factors mostly related to the intestinal inflammatory disease were the family history of colitis and Crohn disease, as well as the inadequate consumption of foods, the long use of antibiotics and nicotine addiction.

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