Impact of bronchial asthma on life styles in children with bronchial asthma in a tertiary care unit

Background: Bronchial asthma is a chronic respiratory illness affecting children. It has significant impact on childhood activities and it is a major contributor towards school absenteeism Objective: To evaluate the impact of bronchial asthma on life styles in bronchial asthmatic children from a tertiary care unit, Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Method: A prospective cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in professorial paediatric respiratory clinic at Teaching Hospital Jaffna. All the children who were diagnosed as Bronchial Asthma and on inhaled corticosteroids for more than three months were recruited into the study. The data was collected by interviewer administered questionnaire. Results: Sixty children were studied during the period. The mean age of the study population is 6.8 ± 3.2 years. Among the study population 55% (n=33) were females and 45% (n=27) were males. The mean duration of steroid usage in the study population was 15.5 ± 1.5 months. Exercise induced asthma was seen in 27% (N=16). Sixty fiver percent (n=39) had good asthma control and 90% had no school absenteeism during the last 3 months. 62% of study population restricted ice cream and chilled foods irrespective of symptoms and 38% restricted bathing. Restriction of life style was initiated by the parents in 95% of the time and in 5% of children ice cream was restricted by medical practitioner. Conclusions: Life style restrictions in children were imposed mainly by parents despite having a good control of asthma