Further observations on social factors associated with duodenal ulcer in Soweto

It has been postulated that urbanisation is an important factor in the genesis of duodenal ulcer. This study of 100 duodenal ulcer patients, and 100 hospital controls, matched according to sex, age, education and occupation, and an additional 50 unmatched endoscopically negative controls, confirmed that duodenal ulcer patients were mainly young men who were more likely to have been born in an urban area than the controls. Furthermore, a significant number of duodenal ulcer patients were born and reared in the smaller towns of South Africa and then moved to Soweto. It is suggested that frustrated aspirations in these towns might even be greater than in Soweto. In the context of the Soweto population where occupational and educational status is generally low, duodenal ulcer patients were of a higher educational and occupational category than Sowetans and unselected controls. Thus factors associated with urbanisation such as education and occupation and the pattern of urbanisation play key roles in duodenal ulcer. Investigation into particular aspects of the work situation such as the degree of autonomy exercised at work, authority over others and attitudes to supervision yielded no significant results.