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The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo

INTRODUCTION: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by episodes of airway narrowing leading to manifestations of symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, that may resolve spontaneously or following treatment. AIM: The aim of this paper was to p...

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Autores principales: Gashi, Valbona, Ahmetaj, Luljeta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7164728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32317829
http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.19-23
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author Gashi, Valbona
Ahmetaj, Luljeta
author_facet Gashi, Valbona
Ahmetaj, Luljeta
author_sort Gashi, Valbona
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by episodes of airway narrowing leading to manifestations of symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, that may resolve spontaneously or following treatment. AIM: The aim of this paper was to present the collected data related to the prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms, asthma, and use of asthma medication among school children aged 13-14 years from the city of Gjilan, a municipality located in southeast Kosovo. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study realized during the year 2018 as a part of the Project of Global Asthma Network (GAN) Phase I. The study elaborated randomly selected sample of 1200 school children from the city of Gjilan, in the southeast of Kosovo. The mean age was 13.4±0.51 with median IQR=13 (13-14). About 618 (51.5%) were male and 582 (48.5%) were female with the relation between the genders of 1:1.1. The percentage difference between the genders was not statistically significant (Difference test: Difference 3% [(-0.99-6.99) CI 95%]; Chi-square=2.159; df=1 p=0.1417). The prevalence of wheezing/ whistling in the chest EVER and the last 12 months was 12.7% vs. 6.4% respectively with no significant association between gender and symptoms (p>0.05) (Table 1). About 1132 (94.3%) had no attacks of wheezing in the last 12 MONTHS, 59 (4.9%) had 1-3 attacks, 7 (0.6%) had 4-12 attacks and 2 (0.2%) had>12 attacks. The analysis did not indicate a significant association between gender and the frequency of wheezing attacks (none / 1-3 / ≥ 4) for Pearson Chi-square: 2.5501; df=2; p=0.2801. CONCLUSION: This study has found moderately low asthma prevalence among adolescents in the southeast region of Kosovo, with no significant association between genders. Although, should be considered as an urgent need the proper examination, because asthma seems to be under-diagnosed and also untreated. It’s possible that doctors in our country hesitate to diagnose asthma or the parents themselves and the children deny it.
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spelling pubmed-71647282020-04-21 The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo Gashi, Valbona Ahmetaj, Luljeta Med Arch Original Paper INTRODUCTION: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by episodes of airway narrowing leading to manifestations of symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, that may resolve spontaneously or following treatment. AIM: The aim of this paper was to present the collected data related to the prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms, asthma, and use of asthma medication among school children aged 13-14 years from the city of Gjilan, a municipality located in southeast Kosovo. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study realized during the year 2018 as a part of the Project of Global Asthma Network (GAN) Phase I. The study elaborated randomly selected sample of 1200 school children from the city of Gjilan, in the southeast of Kosovo. The mean age was 13.4±0.51 with median IQR=13 (13-14). About 618 (51.5%) were male and 582 (48.5%) were female with the relation between the genders of 1:1.1. The percentage difference between the genders was not statistically significant (Difference test: Difference 3% [(-0.99-6.99) CI 95%]; Chi-square=2.159; df=1 p=0.1417). The prevalence of wheezing/ whistling in the chest EVER and the last 12 months was 12.7% vs. 6.4% respectively with no significant association between gender and symptoms (p>0.05) (Table 1). About 1132 (94.3%) had no attacks of wheezing in the last 12 MONTHS, 59 (4.9%) had 1-3 attacks, 7 (0.6%) had 4-12 attacks and 2 (0.2%) had>12 attacks. The analysis did not indicate a significant association between gender and the frequency of wheezing attacks (none / 1-3 / ≥ 4) for Pearson Chi-square: 2.5501; df=2; p=0.2801. CONCLUSION: This study has found moderately low asthma prevalence among adolescents in the southeast region of Kosovo, with no significant association between genders. Although, should be considered as an urgent need the proper examination, because asthma seems to be under-diagnosed and also untreated. It’s possible that doctors in our country hesitate to diagnose asthma or the parents themselves and the children deny it. Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2020-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7164728/ /pubmed/32317829 http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.19-23 Text en © 2020 Valbona Gashi, Luljeta Ahmetaj http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Gashi, Valbona
Ahmetaj, Luljeta
The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title_full The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title_fullStr The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title_full_unstemmed The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title_short The Prevalence of Self-reported Respiratory Symptoms, Asthma and use of Asthma Medication Among Young Adolescents from Southeast Kosovo
title_sort prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms, asthma and use of asthma medication among young adolescents from southeast kosovo
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7164728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32317829
http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.19-23
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