Using the international study of asthma and allergies in childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire, 3000 children aged 6-7 years from various schools in the north east of England were studied. In this population, the lifetime prevalence rates of various symptoms and diagnoses were: wheezing, 29.6%; atopic eczema, 27.8%; rhinitis, 23.1%; and self reported asthma, 22.7%. Rhinitis was reported by 44% and 40% of boys and girls with asthma, respectively. Atopic eczema was reported by 46% of both boys and girls with asthma. The prevalence rates of reported asthma, and of symptoms suggestive of asthma, were higher than those reported from studies conducted on UK children in 1992. (Arch Dis Child 1999;81:313-317) Keywords: international study of asthma and allergies in childhood; asthma; rhinitis; eczema The national survey of asthma in children aged 5-17 years in the UK 1 revealed that in the past year, 15.0% of children had wheezed, 2.2% had more than 12 attacks, and 2.3% had experienced a speech limiting attack. It was also found that with increasing age, morbidity related to wheezing declined to a greater extent than the annual period prevalence.Kaur and colleagues 2 studied the prevalence of asthma symptoms in 12-14 year old British children and found that the national 12 month prevalence of any wheezing, speech limiting wheeze, four or more attacks of wheeze, and frequent night waking with wheeze was 33.3%, 8.8%, 9.6%, and 3.7%, respectively. They found that the prevalence of self reported symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of asthma was high among 12-14 year olds throughout the UK, with little geographical or urban-rural variation.Another ISAAC UK national study of 12-14 year old children throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and the Scottish Islands 3 showed that 18.2% of children reported recent rhinoconjunctivitis. They found that geographical variations were generally small but the prevalence of symptoms was significantly higher in Scotland and northern England. It was also higher in girls and subjects born within the UK. Of all children, 47.6% reported one or more current symptoms and 4% reported all three symptoms (asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, atopic eczema).As one of the participating centres of ISAAC, we surveyed the prevalence of asthma and allergic disease in 6-7 year old schoolchildren in the north east. The aim of our study was to investigate the prevalence and severity of asthma, rhinitis, and atopic eczema in these children. Our results will be compared with other studies using the same ISAAC protocol.
MethodsWe obtained school lists from the Department of Education in the North East Region of England. We prepared sampling frames of mixed sex state schools with over 100 pupils in each school year. We randomly selected one school from each sampling frame, to produce 78 schools for study. We used the ISAAC written questionnaire for asthma, rhinitis, and atopic eczema. We sent 3750 questionnaires to parents or guardians of 6-7 year old children. Three thousand and fifty five questionnaires were returne...
