[Prevalence of asthma in schoolchildren from the Mexican city Hermosillo]. / Prevalencia de asma en niños escolares de la ciudad mexicana de Hermosillo.

Asthma is a very common disease, but its prevalence greatly varies from region to region, even in the same country. In the northwest of Mexico there is a lack of epidemiological studies on this disease. In this work a standardized questionnaire (ISAAC) was applied to parents of children attending 8 primary schools in the Mexican city of Hermosillo, Sonora. Of 3000 questionnaires sent, 1489 (49%) were acceptably answered. Children were of either sex and 9.1 +/- 1.8 years old (mean +/- SD). From this population, 74 (10.4%) out of 713 male and 67 (8.6%) out of 776 female children had an affirmative response to que question "Have you ever had asthma?", from which we conclude that global prevalence of asthma in the studied sample was 9.5%, an intermediate figure among those reported from other studies performed in Mexico.