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Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students

BACKGROUND: Incense burning such as scented candles are commonly used in Arabian Gulf regions as it is thought to produce relaxing effects on people’s mood. This study is conducted to examine the prevalence of scented candles’ usage, extent of exposure and its effects on individuals’ health based on...

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Autores principales: Al Khathlan, Noor, Basuwaidan, Meaad, Al Yami, Sarah, Al-Saif, Fatimah, Al-Fareed, Salam, Ansari, Khalid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9832800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36631840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15001-6
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author Al Khathlan, Noor
Basuwaidan, Meaad
Al Yami, Sarah
Al-Saif, Fatimah
Al-Fareed, Salam
Ansari, Khalid
author_facet Al Khathlan, Noor
Basuwaidan, Meaad
Al Yami, Sarah
Al-Saif, Fatimah
Al-Fareed, Salam
Ansari, Khalid
author_sort Al Khathlan, Noor
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Incense burning such as scented candles are commonly used in Arabian Gulf regions as it is thought to produce relaxing effects on people’s mood. This study is conducted to examine the prevalence of scented candles’ usage, extent of exposure and its effects on individuals’ health based on symptoms prevalence in young university students. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted on university students from different regions in Saudi Arabia. Data was collected in March 2020 using an online questionnaire survey adapted from The European Community Respiratory Health Survey-II (ECRHS-II). Inclusion criterion for recruitment was students with non-smoking status. Descriptive statistics were used to report demographic data on the extent of exposure to scented candles (in terms of frequency and duration) and the presence of symptoms. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between scented candles exposure and respiratory and other health-related problems. RESULTS: The prevalence of scented candles usage was 65.7% (472/718) among the respondents. However, its pervasiveness was significantly higher in females than in male respondents (74.9% vs. 28.4%; p = 0.0001). Among the scented candle users, 34.8% of the respondents used the scented candles more than 4 times a month and 40.2% of the respondents lit the scented candles for 20–40 min. A total of 117 (24.8%) respondents reported health-related problem and the top three health problems were headache 72 (15.2%), shortness of breath 42 (8.9%) and cough 37 (7.8%). The scented candle usage 5–6 times a week showed significantly lower wheezing (OR = 0.10, 95%CI 0.02–0.54, p = 0.008). The duration of more than 60 min of scented candle exposure showed higher occurrence of headache 1.42 times (95% CI = 0.68–2.96), sneezing 1.29 times (95% CI = 0.42-4.00) and wheezing 1.23 times (95% CI = 0.48–3.13), though the association was not significant. CONCLUSION: The results show that scented candle usage is more prevalent among female university students in Saudi Arabia. The common health-related problems associated with scented candle exposure were headache, shortness of breath and coughing.
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spelling pubmed-98328002023-01-12 Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students Al Khathlan, Noor Basuwaidan, Meaad Al Yami, Sarah Al-Saif, Fatimah Al-Fareed, Salam Ansari, Khalid BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Incense burning such as scented candles are commonly used in Arabian Gulf regions as it is thought to produce relaxing effects on people’s mood. This study is conducted to examine the prevalence of scented candles’ usage, extent of exposure and its effects on individuals’ health based on symptoms prevalence in young university students. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted on university students from different regions in Saudi Arabia. Data was collected in March 2020 using an online questionnaire survey adapted from The European Community Respiratory Health Survey-II (ECRHS-II). Inclusion criterion for recruitment was students with non-smoking status. Descriptive statistics were used to report demographic data on the extent of exposure to scented candles (in terms of frequency and duration) and the presence of symptoms. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between scented candles exposure and respiratory and other health-related problems. RESULTS: The prevalence of scented candles usage was 65.7% (472/718) among the respondents. However, its pervasiveness was significantly higher in females than in male respondents (74.9% vs. 28.4%; p = 0.0001). Among the scented candle users, 34.8% of the respondents used the scented candles more than 4 times a month and 40.2% of the respondents lit the scented candles for 20–40 min. A total of 117 (24.8%) respondents reported health-related problem and the top three health problems were headache 72 (15.2%), shortness of breath 42 (8.9%) and cough 37 (7.8%). The scented candle usage 5–6 times a week showed significantly lower wheezing (OR = 0.10, 95%CI 0.02–0.54, p = 0.008). The duration of more than 60 min of scented candle exposure showed higher occurrence of headache 1.42 times (95% CI = 0.68–2.96), sneezing 1.29 times (95% CI = 0.42-4.00) and wheezing 1.23 times (95% CI = 0.48–3.13), though the association was not significant. CONCLUSION: The results show that scented candle usage is more prevalent among female university students in Saudi Arabia. The common health-related problems associated with scented candle exposure were headache, shortness of breath and coughing. BioMed Central 2023-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9832800/ /pubmed/36631840 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15001-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Al Khathlan, Noor
Basuwaidan, Meaad
Al Yami, Sarah
Al-Saif, Fatimah
Al-Fareed, Salam
Ansari, Khalid
Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title_full Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title_fullStr Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title_full_unstemmed Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title_short Extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
title_sort extent of exposure to scented candles and prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms amongst young university students
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9832800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36631840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15001-6
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