Some Epidemiological Features of Bronchial Asthma in Benghazi Children Hospital, 2010/2011

Abstract

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in childhood. It negatively affects children during critical
periods of growth and development, which leads to increased annual cost of treating childhood asthma.
This study aimed to determine some epidemiological features of bronchial asthma in Benghazi Children Hospital.
A descriptive cross sectional study was approached. All bronchial asthma cases admitted to Benghazi Children
Hospital between January 2010 and December 2011 were included. From these cases a statistically representative
sample was withdrawn. For this sample all demographic and clinical data were collected. These data were processed
and statistically analyzed by SPSS version 18.
The mean age for this sample group was 4.8 years. Males had a slightly higher percentage of asthma than female.
About 60% of the cases had a family history of asthma. It has also been found that there is no similarity in the peak
of asthma cases admission between the years 2010 and 2011. Most of the cases were not prescribed any antibiotics
showing that asthma is not misdiagnosed in this setting.
The epidemiological features of bronchial asthma in this hospital, does not differ much from that in the international
literature.