Public Lacks Knowledge About Dysphagia

THURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) — There is a notable gap in public awareness and knowledge of dysphagia compared with other conditions, according to a study published online March 27 in Dysphagia.

Sonja M. Molfenter, Ph.D., from New York University in New York City, and colleagues conducted a survey to determine the public”s awareness and understanding of dysphagia among 2,000 adults.

The researchers found that participants expressed higher familiarity with insomnia (99 percent) and vertigo (87 percent) versus dysphagia (25 percent) and ataxia (18 percent). The vast majority of participants (99 and 94 percent) selected the correct impairment from a list of eight options for insomnia and vertigo, respectively, versus 44 and 22 percent correct for dysphagia and ataxia. An appropriate health care provider was selected for dysphagia 47 percent of the time versus 74 percent for insomnia, 56 percent for vertigo, and 36 percent for ataxia. When asked to select three sequelae from a list of nine, only 4 percent of participants could correctly identify all three for dysphagia versus 16 percent for ataxia, 27 percent for vertigo, and 60 percent for insomnia. When examining Epic-based patient encounters with any ICD-10 code for each condition, insomnia had the highest prevalence in 2023 (5.5 percent of patient encounters), but dysphagia occurred more frequently (2.4 percent) than vertigo (0.68 percent) and ataxia (0.24 percent).

“Increasing public awareness of dysphagia is vital for early intervention, increasing quality of life, and advocating for equitable access to health care resources,” the authors write.

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