Relationship between childhood asthma severity and mother's general education

Abstract

Objective: To answer if there is there any relationship between education of the mother and severity of asthma in children.

Material and methods: 231 mothers of primary school children with asthma answered questionnaire about natural course of their children's asthma and their level of general education. 7.9% of mothers had primary, 55.8% had secondary school; 10.5% had college and 12.4% university degree. Mothers answered questions about: time of the first obstruction and time of establishing the diagnose of asthma; number of lifetime hospitalizations; school absenteeism and use of bronchodilators 12 months before the study; number of exacerbations that required IV/IM or oral corticosteroid treatment and number of night disturbed by asthma 12 moths before the study; value of total serum IgE; co morbidities as atopic dermatitis (AD), allergic rhinitis (AR), otitis media serosa chronica (SOM) anytime and positivity of at least one skin prick test (SPT).

Results: There was no difference between children according to the AD, AR, SOM or SPT positivity (χ=2.5, χ=0.6, χ=0.7, χ=5.6, p>0.05), total IgE (F=0.5, p>0.05), time of the first obstruction (F=1.1, p>0.05), time of the diagnose of asthma (F=1.6, p>0.05), number of lifetime hospitalizations (F=0.9, p>0.05) and school absenteeism (F=1.1, p>0.05). However, children of mothers with primary school used more bronchodilators (F=3.8, p<0.05), had more asthma exacerbations (F=12.8, p<0.05) and had more nights disturbed by asthma (F=4.7, p<0.05) 12 months before the study compared to the children of more educated mothers.

Conclusion: Mother's general education seemed to be important for the childhood asthma severity.