Prevalence of asthma in elementary school children in Kerman in 1999

Abstract

The aim of this study was of determine the prevalence of asthma among elementary school children (6-12 years old) of Kerman in 1999.for this purpose,a randomly selected sample of 3036 school children was surveyed with a questionnaire.of this,2217 students (73%),including 1035 boys and 1182 girls,responded to the questionnaire.after surveying the returned questionnaire,60 students with asthma were nidentifed.the prevalence of asthma in elementary school children of Kerman was 2.7%(95% confidence interval(CI)2.1-3.5){3.3%(95% CI:2.2-4.4)} in boys and 2.3%(95%CI:1.5-3.3)in girls).there were statistically significant relationships between asthma and the presence of family history of asthma,allrgic rhinitis,drug allergy,food allergy(p<0.05).these results suggest that asthma in Kerman appear to be a public health problem in elementary school children,although its prevalence was low.

Keywords

• asthma
• prevalence
• school children
• atopy
• kerman