Chronic productive cough in school children: prevalence and associations with asthma and environmental tobacco smoke exposure

Carter, Debley, Redding

Description

The relationships between chronic productive cough (CPC), environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure, and asthma are not clearly established in children. Therefore, we wished to determine the prevalence of CPC and examine the relationships between CPC, ETS exposure, and asthma in young teenagers. Methods We performed a cross sectional survey of 2397 Seattle middle school students, 11–15 years old, using written and video respiratory-symptom questionnaires. We defined CPC as – daily cough productive of phlegm for at least 3 months out of the year; current asthma as – yes to "Have you had wheezing or whistling in your chest in the past 12 months?" and yes in the past year to any of the four video wheezing/asthma video scenarios; and ETS exposure as exposed to tobacco smoke at least several hours each day. We used multilogistic regression to examine relationships between CPC, asthma, and ETS exposure and included in the model the potentially confounding variables race, gender, and allergic rhinitis. Results The prevalence of CPC was 7.2%. Forty-seven percent (82/173) of children with CPC met criteria for current asthma, while only 10% (214/2224) of those without CPC had current asthma. Current asthma had the strongest associated with CPC, odds ratio (OR) 6.4 [95% CI 4.5–9.0], and ETS was independently associated with both CPC, OR 2.7 [1.8–4.1] and asthma, OR 2.7 [1.5–4.7]. Conclusion In a population of young teenagers, CPC was strongly associated with report of current asthma symptoms and also with ETS exposure. This suggests that asthma and ETS exposure may contribute to CPC in children. However, this study was not designed to determine whether asthma was the actual cause of CPC in this population of children.

Informations

• Publié par: biomed
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 7
• Langue: English

Extrait

Cough

BioMedCentral

Open Access Research Chronic productive cough in school children: prevalence and associations with asthma and environmental tobacco smoke exposure Edward R Carter*, Jason S Debley and Gregory R Redding

Address: Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA Email: Edward R Carter*  [e-mail]; Jason S Debley  [e-mail]; Gregory R Redding  [e-mail] * Corresponding author

Published: 27 December 2006 Received: 15 August 2006 Accepted: 27 December 2006 Cough2006,2:11 doi:10.1186/1745-9974-2-11 This article is available from: http://www.coughjournal.com/content/2/1/11 © 2006 Carter et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract Background:The relationships between chronic productive cough (CPC), environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure, and asthma are not clearly established in children. Therefore, we wished to determine the prevalence of CPC and examine the relationships between CPC, ETS exposure, and asthma in young teenagers. Methods:We performed a cross sectional survey of 2397 Seattle middle school students, 11–15 years old, using written and video respiratory-symptom questionnaires. We definedCPCas – daily cough productive of phlegm for at least 3 months out of the year;current asthmaas –yesto "Have you had wheezing or whistling in your chest in the past 12 months?" andyes in the past yearto any of the four video wheezing/asthma video scenarios; andETS exposureas exposed to tobacco smoke at least several hours each day. We used multilogistic regression to examine relationships between CPC, asthma, and ETS exposure and included in the model the potentially confounding variables race, gender, and allergic rhinitis. Results:The prevalence of CPC was 7.2%. Forty-seven percent (82/173) of children with CPC met criteria for current asthma, while only 10% (214/2224) of those without CPC had current asthma. Current asthma had the strongest associated with CPC, odds ratio (OR) 6.4 [95% CI 4.5–9.0], and ETS was independently associated with both CPC, OR 2.7 [1.8–4.1] and asthma, OR 2.7 [1.5–4.7].

Conclusion:In a population of young teenagers, CPC was strongly associated with report of current asthma symptoms and also with ETS exposure. This suggests that asthma and ETS exposure may contribute to CPC in children. However, this study was not designed to determine whether asthma was the actual cause of CPC in this population of children.

Background Asthma is a recognized cause of persistent cough in both adults [1,2] children [3], but cough productive of sputum for more than three months out of the year, referred to as chronic productive cough (CPC), is not considered com

mon in children with asthma. The NHLBI guidelines do not discuss productive cough as a separate sign [4], and little is known about the prevalence of CPC and its causes in children.

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