Risk Factors of Childhood Asthma- A Case Control Study in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bronchial asthma is one of the major illnesses in children. Much is known about the risk factors of this disease -some factors can be avoided and others cannot. The aim was to study the associated risk factors of childhood asthma in Bangladesh. The sample size was 400(case 200, control 200). Semi-structured Bengali questionnaires based on international study for asthma and allergy in childhood (ISAAC) questionnaires was used to collect data. Mean± SD of the age in case group was 4.5±2.7 years and in control group was 4.7±2.7 years. Of the age group 1-5 years asthma affected both boys and girls equally 51.1%. But girls were more affected in age 5 – 10 years 48.9%. Among the cases 72% were low birth weight compare to 21% were in control group. Seventy percent of subjects with asthma suffered from rhinitis, 89.5% and 97.0% associated with food allergy and allergic conjunctivitis respectively. There were statistically significant associations occurred between asthma and rhinitis p<0.001), asthma and food allergy p<0.001) and asthma and conjunctivitis p<0.001). Significantly 68.5% of patients with asthma had a family history of asthma. History of asthma (OR=18.33; 95% CI: 4.71-21.69), history of allergy (OR=10.11; 95% CI: 4.71-21.69) and pneumonia (OR=7.36; 95% CI: 3. 57-15.17) were strongly affected asthma attacks. Early life exposures predicting asthma symptoms of studied children such as other allergy (OR=1.2; 95% CI: 1.05-2.29), Rhinitis (OR = 3.94, 95% CI: 1.88-8.27), passive smoking (OR= 6.12; 95% CI= 1.54-8.23), Pneumonia (OR=3.23; 95% CI: 3.8-5.7), Bronchitis (OR=2.6; 95% CI: 1.2-6.23) were strongly associated with asthma. Some risk factors of asthma can be avoided as exposure to passive smoking, dust, place and type of delivery, use of mosquito coil, unwilling to breast feed.  Reducing exposures can minimize the risk of asthma