Middle Ear Effusion in Children and the Indoor Environment: An Epidemiological Study

Abstract

A prospective study of 337 children was carried out during a 3-month period. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the importance of indoor environmental factors in homes and day-care institutions for the incidence of middle ear effusion (MEE). The indoor environmental factors measured in institutions were carbon dioxide, temperature, and relative humidity. Conditions in the homes were assessed by a questionnaire. Middle ear effusion was measured by tympanometry. No relationship was found between indoor environmental factors and MEE, with the exception of parental smoking at home, which increased the frequency of MEE in children.

Prevalence of otitis media with effusion among school age children in rural parts of Konya province, Turkey

“…There are certain individual and environmental risk factors in the development of SOM including sex, socioeconomic status, family history, birth and neonatal history including breastfeeding, passive smoking, recent history of hearing loss, allergies, nasal symptoms, acute tonsillitis, recurrent and recent upper respiratory tract infections, previous history of acute otitis media, effect of the season and attendance in daycare centers. [1][2][3][4] The point prevalence of SOM varies among several studies and also depends on research methods and population characteristics. Epidemiological studies on SOM in Turkish children generally have been performed in major cities.…”

“…[1] In fact, the formation of middle ear effusion frequently occurs after an episode of acute otitis media (AOM). Chronic otitis media with effusion is defined as the persistence of serous or mucoid middle ear effusion for three months or more.…”

Parental Smoking and Middle Ear Disease in Children: A Review of the Evidence

“…Twenty-five studies were of prospective design, which in this review is used to describe those studies in which children were examined at a number of points in time. Although the term strictly applies to studies where risk factors are related to subsequent onset of disease, this interpretation follows the terminology used by a number of the studies [6,22,56] in which the presence of ear disease was discovered at the start of the study period in some children. A further 13 studies were cross-sectional, in which the relationship between parental smoking and ear disease was examined in a defined population at one particular time and 20 were of the case-control type, in which information on parental/household smoking was collected after the child had been diagnosed or treated for ear disease and compared to that for parents of healthy children.…”

“…It is characterised by an abnormal appearance of the eardrum, which may be coloured grey, yellow or blue, and mild to moderate conductive hearing loss, and is not associated with fever. Otitis media with effusion may also be known as 'serous', 'secretory' or 'suppurative otitis media', 'middle ear effusion' or 'glue ear' [7,14,22,56,[87][88][89][90][91][92][93].…”

Fatores de risco para otite média aguda recorrente: onde podemos intervir? - uma revisão sistemática da literatura

“…Studying 337 children recruited in day care centers, they demonstrated smoking as a risk for COME, with the additional finding that the risk associated with passive smoking increased with age. 85 In the same year, the first study exclusively designed to test the hypothesis that passive smoking was a RF for COME appeared. Etzel conducted a retrospective cohort of 9 years with 132 day care children.…”