Sintomas de asma e fatores associados em adolescentes de Salvador, Bahia

Jean Márcia Oliveira Mascarenhas, Rita de Cássia Ribeiro Silva, Ana Marlúcia Oliveira de Assis, Elizabete de Jesus Pinto, Jackson Santos Conceição, Maurício Lima Barreto

Identify the factors associated with asthma symptoms in adolescents. Cross-sectional study with the participation of 1,176 students between the ages of 11 and 17 years old, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The asthma symptoms were identified by using the standardized questionnaire from The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood Program (ISAAC), phase III. The subjects' food intake data were collected by a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) comprised of 97 food items. All of the information was collected during a single interview. Anthropometric, socioeconomic, and demographic data were collected from the study population. The robust Poisson model was adopted to obtain the raw and adjusted PR (prevalence ratio). From the total number of adolescents, 57.6% are female and 83.71% of them were between 13 and 17 years old. The prevalence of asthma symptoms was of 7.6%, being higher among males (9.62%). The prevalence of wheezing in the last 12 months was 8.6%. Among the adolescents with rhinitis and eczema, the prevalence of asthma symptoms was of 15.2 and 14.3%, respectively. After an adjusted analysis, the following factors were identified: females PR = 0.64 (95%CI 0.42 - 0.96), rhinitis PR = 3.23 (95%CI 2.17 - 4.83) and the 2nd tertile of the healthy pattern (moderate consumption) PR = 0.61 (95%CI 0.37 - 0.99). Rhinitis and eczema were presented as risk factors for asthma symptoms. The healthy food intake pattern that had been stratified in tertiles, presented the 2nd tertile as a protector for asthma symptoms.