Asthma and Wheezing as the Cause of School Absence

Abstract

A survey was conducted on children attending 30 primary schools (15 each for boys ad girls) in Al-Ain City of United Arab Emirates (UAE) to assess the impact of asthma on school absenteeism. There are 28,447 primary school children (50% boys and 50% girls) aged 6-14 years in the Al-Ain Educational District, all of whose school health records were investigated with respect to school absence caused by asthma during the academic year 1991-1992. Results showed that overall 1910 (6.7%) pupils were diagnosed as having asthma and wheezing during the preceding year by school doctors and nurses. Out of 14,217 boys, 1146 (8.1%) had asthma and wheezing, and 764 of 14,230 girls (5.4%) had the same condition. Overall 1,255 (4.9%) pupils were absent from school for at least 1 day during the year. Of 1146 boys with wheezing or asthma, 707 (62%) missed at least 1 day of school due to asthma, and of 764 girls who were asthmatic or wheezing, 548 (72%) missed school for at least 1 day in the year. There was a very highly statistically significant difference between sexes of children who were asthmatic or wheezing and missed school at least 1 day (p < 0.0001). Absenteeism most commonly occurred during spring for both boys (42%) and girls (45%). Absence from school due to asthma occurred least during autumn for both boys (26%) and girls (22%). This study confirms that asthma is a common chronic disease among primary school children in Al-Ain, UAE, and is a common cause of absenteeism from school.

The Impact of Asthma and Allergic Diseases on Schoolchildren: Are They at Increased Risk of Absenteeism and Poor School Performance?

“…(Figure 2) These results support the fact that air pollution has an impact on asthma. This is in agreement with other studies of two populations of Australian (Peat et al, 1987) and United Arab Emirates (Bener et al, 1994b) that high prevalence of asthma was found in primary school children during spring/summer seasons which led to more absenteeism from school. Air pollution has been associated with a number of detrimental health effects for children especially respiratory diseases.…”

“…In Qatar, 50.3% of the absenteeism was observed in asthmatic children studying in intermediate level (aged 12 -14 years). In the United Arab Emirates, 57% of asthmatic children aged 6-9 years missed at least 1 day of school compared with 42% in 10-14 year old similar children (Bener et al, 1994b). It is possible that increased absenteeism in younger asthmatic children due to the fact that asthma exacerbations are more severe in younger children.…”

“…The majority of the asthmatic children in Qatar were absent for 1 -5 days which is similar to a study done in Rochester, Minnesota which found that public school children with asthma had 2 excess days of absenteeism per year compared to their healthy peers (Silverstein et al, 2001). In the UAE, the number of days absent from school ranged from none to more than twenty days in the academic year and the median absence was 6 days in the diagnosed asthmatic group and 5 days among wheezing children (Bener et al, 1994b). Similarly in Saudi Arabia school absenteeism was higher among asthmatic children (13.6 days/year), while it was lower among their non-asthmatic counterparts (3.7 days) (Al-Dawood et al, 2002).…”

Breathless: Schools, Air Toxics, and Environmental Justice in California

“…Childhood respiratory problems of the sort that might be induced by air pollutants have also been associated directly and indirectly with lower academic performance (Fowler, Davenport, and Garg 1992;Bener, et al, 1994). In some communities, parents have complained of diminished school performance among their children due to health effects associated with outdoor and other pollution (Diette et al, 2000;Perera et al, 1999;Kaplan and Morris 2000).…”

Factors Responsible for Asthma and Rhinitis among Kuwaiti Schoolchildren

“…Equally important, the prevalence of asthma in Kuwait was higher than * p < 0.001. n = Number of students. that reported from UAE (6-7%) and Saudi Arabia (10.3%) [19] . Although the present study was conducted on bedroom dust, apparently the most important room in the house, only 2.7 and 3.5% of the houses had extremely low ( !…”