. PREVALENCE OF ASTHMA AMONG SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN IN TAIF, SAUDI ARABIA. - .

Background:Prevalence of asthma and allergies among children has become an increasing problem in the last few decades. Asthma has become the most common chronic disease among children and is one of the major causes of hospitalization among those younger than 15 years of age (World Health Organization, 2006). Aim of study: To estimate the prevalence of asthma among school age children in Taif, KSA and its level of control. Also, we tried to study the risk factors associated with asthma & factors that might affect the level of control. Research Design and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was done. A multistage random sampling technique will be used to recruit the 1197 students participate in the study by applying a written questionnaire on school age (5-18 years-randomly selected) children, the questionnaire was contain Socio-demographic data as number of living children, age of mother, mother education, mother occupation, father education, father occupation, father smoking, family history of any allergies, number of rooms in the house, ventilation and animals or birds in the house and Questions for asthmatic children To evaluate asthma clinically to detect triggers we asked about increased severity of asthma symptoms with foods, fumes, effort, smoking, cold exposure, drugs, contacts or others. Also, we asked about wheezing module used in The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) and Asthma Control Test ™ questions To assess clinical control.. Statistical analysis will be performed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) program for windows version 16. Results; we found that The prevalence of children asthma in Taif, Saudi Arabia was 10.44%.and Uncontrolled asthma was detected in 19.2% of asthmatic children, while 40 % of asthmatic children were partly controlled and 40.8% were well controlled. - See more at: .