Abstract:
Objective: Although asthma in children constitutes a
major health problem, there is a dearth of literature on
different aspects of asthma in rapidly developing
countries. This cross-sectional research aims to study the
socioclinical profile of asthmatic children and the impact
of asthma symptoms on their life style.
Methods: The sample of this study, drawn from pediatric
clinics of a general hospital and primary health care
centers during a period of six months, comprised of
children under 13 years of age who met the operational
diagnostic criteria for asthma. The data collected from
multiple sources on a semistructured questionnaire was
analyzed by using different statistical tests.
Results: The results showed that male children
represented 69% of the sample and children under one
year of age manifested significantly severe degree of
asthma. The frequency of asthma symptoms decreased in most of the studied children with increasing age. Further,
they have insignificant family history of asthma (48.5%)
but a significant smoking at home in severely affected
children (59%). Moreover, most of them (88%) were
mainly characterized by a combination of asthmatic
symptoms of variable severity that adversely affected their
sleep pattern and significantly resulted in school absences
and increased days stay in hospital.
Conclusions: The revealed socioclinical profile of studied
children with asthma has adverse impact on certain
components of their life style, which shows the need for
re-activating relevant treatment modalities including health
education and changing certain habits like parental
smoking at home, which adversely affects asthma.
