Authors : Nemat Bilan and Shamsi Ghaffari
Abstract: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the small airways that results from a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors. As mentioned in many reports from different parts of the world, the prevalence of asthma is increasing during recent years, therefore we planned this study to investigate its predisposing factors, clarifying its epidemiology in our ethnic and geographical territory. In a case-control study on 360 children in the age range from 2-8 years, we compared the presence of asthma risk factors between 2 groups including 120 asthmatic cases and 240 non-asthmatic controls. Some risk factors were significantly more prevalent in asthmatics than controls, these include: positive family history of asthma (p = 0.003, OR = 7.5), non-breastfed (p = 0.001, OR = 5.4), low birth weight (p<0.001, OR = 3.54), passive smoking (p = 0.001, OR = 2.36) and rhinitis (p = 0.005, OR = 2.05). The most important risk factors for development of asthma were found to be positive history of asthma in first degree family, being non-breastfed and low birth weight in order of decreasing significance.
Nemat Bilan and Shamsi Ghaffari , 2008. Risk Factors of Asthma in 2-8 Years Old Children Referred to Out-Patient Clinic of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Research Journal of Biological Sciences, 3: 1313-1316.