ABSTRACT
Background: bronchial asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease affecting adolescents and young adults nationality and worldwide and its prevalence has increased in developed and developing countries over the last three decades
Aim of the Work: to establish the prevalence of bronchial asthma among medical students in Saudi Arabia and the relationship between asthma and some associated risk factors
Patients and Methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study. Data were collected from randomly selected undergraduate medical students of 6 universities, during the academic year 2017-2018. A predesigned questionnaire was disseminated to the targeted population to complete it
Results: the prevalence of physician-diagnosed bronchial asthma in our participants was 19.2%. Males reported insignificant higher prevalence of bronchial asthma compared to females [P= 0.195]. Bronchial asthma was significantly associated with skin allergy 32.9% [P= 0.001], allergic rhinitis 61.6% [P=0.001], hay fever 12.3 %[P=0.001] and obesity 28.8% [P0.009]. While it was insignificantly associated with smoking [P=0.428], passive smoking [P=0.561], diabetes [P=0.254] and performing muscular exercise [P=0.322]. Precipitating factors to bronchospasm was dust in 43.8%, certain foods in 1.4%, hot weather in 2.7% and multiple factors in 52.1%. Herbal treatment was tried in 34.2%; desensitization in 6.8% and 68.5% needed emergency treatment. Response to medical treatment was good in 89.1% of cases
Conclusion: the prevalence of physician-diagnosed bronchial asthma in our participants was 19.2%. Males reported insignificant higher prevalence of bronchial asthma than females. Bronchial asthma was significantly associated with skin allergy, allergic rhinitis, hay fever and obesity. While it was insignificantly associated with active smoking or passive smoking
ABSTRACT
Background: Diabetes mellitus [DM] is rapidly becoming one of the main health issues among humans in the 21[st] century. The increase in the incidence of type 1 diabetes has been observed as a global public health problem in children and adolescents. This work was conducted aimed to estimate the prevalence of type I diabetes and to describe some related characteristics of cases in a sample of adolescent primary and secondary school girls of Riyadh city, KSA
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during the academic year 2016-2017. Data were collected via a predesigned and pretested questionnaire to gather the relevant data. The total number of participants was 154 adolescent girls
Results: The overall prevalence of type I diabetes among the studied adolescent girls was 5.2% with Mean[ +/- SD] age was 14.08 [ +/- 3.4]. All diabetic girls were Saudi. Only 25% of the cases were using a hormonal contraception. No smoking history or other chronic diseases was detected among them
Conclusion: The present study establishes the prevalence of type 1 DM among Saudi adolescent girls to be 5.2%. We suggest repeating this study periodically, with concentration on the various possible etiological and risk factors. Also we recommend conducting similar studies in other areas of Saudi Arabia to get more information about Diabetes. Awareness campaigns and continuous medical education is of utmost importance to detect the disease to guard against development of complications