Prevalence of varicose veins of the lower limbs in the women working at a department store.

The prevalence of varicose veins of the lower limbs and their risk factors were investigated in the group of 696 women working at a large department store. It was found that 421 of them suffered from varicose veins with the following prevalence of individual clinical types: trunk varices--14.4%, reticular varices--15.4%, and hyphenwebs--30.7%. In our study women with VV of all types compared to women without VV were older (p less than 0.05), more often obese (p less than 0.05), had the positive family history for VV (p less than 0.01), higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure and lower levels of physical activity (not significantly). Women with at least one pregnancy had significantly higher prevalence of VV (p less than 0.001) and women standing at their work had a higher prevalence of trunk varices than those who were sitting at the work (p less than 0.05).