Association between electronic cigarette smoking and allergic rhinitis – The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2015)

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is one of the common chronic diseases. Although it is not a life-threatening disease, its persistent symptoms may cause fatigue, mood change, discomfort at work, and academic disability as well as the decrease of quality of life. The prevalence of AR has been increasing steadily due to the Westernized lifestyle and environmental change. In previous studies, it has been found that AR has a clear relationship with smoking. However, there is no relationship study between AR and electronic cigarettes smoking (ECS). METHODS: The study was conducted on >19-year-old adults who participated in the 2015 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Sex, age, residence status, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking, stress level, economic status, and diagnosis of AR were analyzed by using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: AR tended to be associated with ECS in the Korean adult population in univariate analysis, but ECS was not statistically significant in multivariate analysis. By multivariate analysis, AR was significantly related with younger age, male sex, alcohol consumption, and stress. Moreover, the prevalence of AR was linearly decreased as age increased from 19 to 69 years. CONCLUSION: A diagnosis of AR was not significantly associated with ECS. Instead, AR showed an increased prevalence in adults at younger age, of male sex, and with alcohol consumption and high stress. To derive statistically significant results of relationship between AR and ECS, more well-designed studies focusing on the temporal causal are needed.