Introduction:Asthma is a chronic disease of the airways, which is increasing its prevalence among teenagers recently. The trigger-related factors are numerous, including environmental factors, genetic, food among others.Objective: Investigate the prevalence of asthma symptoms and possible risk factors in adolescents.Methods: This is a cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative study conducted in 104 adolescents aged between 13 to 14 years old of both sexes from four educational institutions: three private and one public. Participants answered two questionnaires: one on risk factors for allergic diseases (EISL) and the other on asthma symptoms (ISAAC asthma module).Results: 104 adolescents answered the questionnaire: 54.8% girls and 45.2% boys. Male subjects had the most active asthma (64%) than female (20%) (p = 0.01) and also had more physician-diagnosed asthma (34.4%) than girls (6.1%) (p = 0.04), more wheezing after exercise (34.4%; 12.1%) (p = 0.03). Regarding the association between the symptoms and the risk factors we observed a statistically significant relationship between the presence of wheezing and hospitalization for public schools girls (p = 0.05).
Conclusion:There is a higher prevalence of asthma symptoms in males than in females unlike other studies was observed.
Why this study was made?The study was developed because the prevalence of asthma symptoms are high among adolescents and over the years other risk factors have been associated with its exacerbation.
What researchers have done and found?The researchers investigated possible risk factors related to the onset of asthma symptoms in adolescents and noted that male volunteers had more active asthma than volunteers, also had more asthma diagnosed and wheezing after exercise. With regard to the association between symptoms and risk factors, a statistically significant relationship was observed between the presence of wheezing and hospitalizations for girls from public schools.
What the results mean?Although the female gender suffered from hormonal changes during adolescence, it was observed that asthma symptoms were more prevalent in males. It is also worth noting that the volunteers from the public school system showed an association of risk factors with hospitalization, suggesting that the socioeconomic factor may have a greater influence on the prevalence of asthma symptoms than hormonal changes.