ABSTRACT
Respiratory system diseases are common among school students but there were no previous community based studies conducted to show the prevalence of bronchial asthma among school students in sohag governorate, also for the assessment of the school classroom environment affecting those diseased students. A cross sectional study was done and randomly chosen classroom from each school from the 50 sampled schools was selected. This study in 2408 students from different grades who completed a prepaired questionnaire and went thorough history taking, physical examination and pulmonary function test for suspicious cases for bronchial asthma with special interest to FEV1 improvement of more than 15% after inhaled sulbutamol. Prevalence of bronchial asthma was [4.81%]; [3.40%] in urban schools and [1.41%] in rural schools with statistically highly significant difference between urban and rural [P<0.001 and 0.002 respectively]. The mean classroom density was [44.6 students per classroom]. About the classroom ventilation, windows area constitutes >/= 1/4-1/5 of the classroom area in [90%] of the schools; [95%] of urban schools and [86.7%] of rural schools. There was significant difference in the prevalence of asthma among urban and rural area school students. Prevalence was high among families with positive history of bronchial asthma. Most of school students who were diagnosed as bronchial asthma had other allergic diseases like eczema and allergic rhinitis and eye allergy