Background:
Children are at higher risk to develop respiratory diseases when they are exposed to biomass smoke. Very few studies have compared the duration of exposure to pulmonary function tests in children. The purpose of the study was to observe the effect of biomass fuel smoke on respiratory symptoms, lung functions in 30 school going children of aged between 7 to 14 years and to compare these parameters with 30 age and sex matched healthy children of same school. And correlate duration of exposure to pulmonary function tests.
Methods:
This prospective study cross-sectional study was carried out over six months (August 2018 to January 2019). The selection of study population was carried out from one of the Government primary school. 80 students participated in the study. Whole study population was divided in to two groups. Group-1 consisted 40 school children those exposed to biomass smoke aged between 7 to 14 years as cases. Group-2 consisted same number of sex and age matched controls, those had no exposure to biomass smoke. After relevant history, questionnaire and respiratory examinations, children were subjected to spirometry. Schiller’s Spirovit-SP1 was used.
Results:
The prevalence of some of the respiratory symptoms in biomass smokers were significant compared to non-smokers. There was significant 1.125 fold reduction in FVC (p=0.003*) and 1.195 fold reduction in FEV1 (p=0.000*) in smokers compared to non-smokers. A significant correlation existed between duration of exposure to FVC (r=-0.508 p=0.001) and FEV1 (r=-0.462 p=0.005).
Conclusions:
We concluded that biomass smoking significantly alters FVC and FEV1 in children and these parameters are negatively correlated with numbers of hours of exposure.
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