Association of Childhood Asthma Control with Parental Socioeconomic status

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate association of childhood asthma control with parental socioeconomic status.
Patients and Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in four hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from 1^st February, 2017 to 31^st January, 2018. Total 151 patients, aged 6 months to 15 years were enrolled in study through non-randomized, simple consecutive sampling. After informed consent doctor filled the structured proforma by taking short interview of parents about their socioeconomic status, drug compliance and level of asthma control of their child. Data was entered and analyzed on SPSS version 21.0. Chi-square test was applied for association among categorical variables. P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Among total of 151 children, 37 (24.5%) children had well controlled asthma while 69 (45.7%) had partially controlled and 45 (29.8) had uncontrolled asthma. Children from low socioeconomic families had poor asthma control than children from high socioeconomic families.
Conclusion: There is statistically significant association of poor asthma control with low parental education and income status. Therefore, more asthma education, frequent follow-ups and provision of free of cost medicines are needed in order to achieve good asthma control in such children.
Key words: Asthma control, Childhood, Socioeconomic status