BRONCHIAL ASTHMA: A STUDY AMONG ATTENDANTS OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, CAIRO UNIVERSITY

Abstract

An analytic cross-sectional study was conducted among a group of attendants of the allergy out patient clinic and emergency unit of New children's hospital, Cairo University, during the year 1999. Results of the study revealed that the pattern of hospital attendance showed significantly higher values among emergency room attendants while compliance to therapy showed significantly higher values among attendants of the outpatient clinic (P<O.OS). Yet there was no overall significant difference regarding knowledge of caretakers among studied groups. Other asthma risk factors were also studied. The most alarming results were those of delay to start home treatment and seek medical help, where the mean delay to start home treatment for astluna attacks was 4.5'8)±8.6 hours while mean delay to seek medical help was 36±32.8 hours during an exacerbation. Regarding b rden of disease on children's quality of life, the estimated total disabling days/year due to hospital contact revealed

that a child would possibly be hospitalized for a maximum of 2 1

months/year with

195 days of E.R. visitations. Upon projection of theses results on the total Egyptian asthmatic population for the year 200 I, the total expected disabling days due to asthma amounted to more than 33 million days with each child suffering of about 53 days/year of disability due to asthma i.e. nearly 2 \vhole months/year. Thus asthma that has long been considered a benign chronic condition of childhood is no longer so, based on results of this study that show the disabling effect asthma can have on a person's life.