No abstract

The Brazilian version of the Childhood Asthma Control Test proved to be valid and reliable in children aged 4-11 years.

The burden of asthma in Brazilian children seems to be substantial. New international guidelines with a special focus in developing countries settings, with more pragmatic approaches, should be a priority for discussion and implementation actions.

Objective: To describe the frequency of popular myths about and features of asthma treatment in children and adolescents in an urban area in southern Brazil. Methods: The parents or legal guardians of public school students (8-16 years of age) completed a specific questionnaire regarding their understanding of asthma, asthma control, and treatment characteristics. The sample included parents or legal guardians of students with asthma (n = 127) and healthy controls (n = 124). Results: The study involved 251 parents or legal guardians, of whom 127 (68.5%) were the mothers and 130 (51.8%) were White. The mean age of these participants was 38.47 ± 12.07 years. Of the participants in the asthma and control groups, 37 (29.1%) and 26 (21.0%), respectively, reported being afraid of using asthma medications, whereas 61 (48%) and 56 (45.2%), respectively, believed that using a metered dose inhaler can lead to drug dependence. However, only 17 (13.4%) and 17 (13.7%) of the participants in the asthma and control groups, respectively, reported being afraid of using oral corticosteroids. In the asthma group, 55 students (43.3%) were diagnosed with uncontrolled asthma, only 41 (32.3%) had a prescription or written treatment plan, and 38 (29.9%) used asthma medications regularly. Conclusions: Popular myths about asthma treatment were common in our sample, as were uncontrolled asthma and inappropriate asthma management. Further studies in this field should be conducted in other developing countries, as should evaluations of pediatric asthma treatment programs in public health systems.

This article aims to review systematically the evidence on nutritional assessment techniques and parameters used to determine the nutritional status of children and adolescents. The literature review and the selection of publications were performed using the Medline, Lilacs, SciELO, Embase, personal files. 17 studies were identified, 7 addressed the anthropometric indices as the main outcome, 7 analyzed the growth and development of children and adolescents through growth curves, and the remainder surveyed body composition. In general, all met the quality criteria, unless 6 of the articles who did not discuss the limitations. The literature review suggests several techniques and parameters that can be applied to determine the nutritional status of children and adolescents from different countries. Growth graphs are essential to assess the health of children, but depend greatly of the growth tables used. Although BMI can be practical, it does not distinguish body fat from lean mass. The best interpretation of anthropometry will depend of valid reference values for age range of the study population. BIA is a quick feasible method, but the measurement has some various nationalities.