Evaluation of Prevalence and Related Factors of Pediatric Asthma in Children Under Six Years Old With Logistic Regression and Probit

Introduction &

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease. Asthma affects one in 13 school age children and is a leading cause of school absenteeism. It seems that prevalence of asthma is increasing wordwide. Many factors are identified and reported as factors related to asthma. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of asthma and associated factors in 600 children under six years using logistic regression and probit.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 600 children under six years old. Questionnaire was constructed based on ISSAC questionnaire and its reliability was determined with a pilot study and calculated by the Cronbach's alpha equal to 69 percent. Cluster sampling based on household records as clusters was performed. Questionnaires were completed by trained staff under supervision of an expert person and by interviewing parents and children.

The prevalence of asthma was estimated to be 3.10 (7.89 to 12.78) percent. Based on fitting models to data, factors such as gender, maternal nutrition, exclusive breast feeding to 6 months, smoking at home by a family member and having a history of respiratory allergy in families were significantly associated with asthma prevalence (p-value ≤ 0.05). The results also demonstrated that the both models are almost identical in evaluating the data.

This study showed that estimated asthma prevalence is equal to average prevalence reported in Iran. Protective factors, such as exclusive breast feeding as a strategy can be appropriated in children's health care programs and should be much more considered.