Programme of asthma in Primary Care: comparative study between two health centres in Valladolid

Introduction: asthma is the more prevalent infantile chronic disease in Spain and in the rest of developed countries. According to the findings of ISAAC Phase Three, its prevalence in Valladolid is 7.2-9.2%. Coinciding with the implementation of asthmatic children health care programme in Castilla y León, we present a comparative study based on the findings obtained by this programme between a rural and periurban population in Valladolid.

Subjects and methods: a cross-sectional, observational study of children 0 to14 years of age who satisfied inclusion criteria to the infantile asthma programme. Demographic data, allergic tests, severity classification, seasonal distribution and treatment have been collected.

Results: sex differences have been detected between both areas (70% for male in the periurban area), age differences (43.7% in periurban area vs. 30% in the rural one), in allergic tests (46.2% positives for less than 2 years of age in periurban area and 26% in the rural one) seasonal distribution differences (winter prevalence in periurban area and spring prevalence in the rural area for children less than 2 years of age) and treatment differences (use of oral salbutamol, mucolytics and antibiotics in crisis in rural area). The rest of the analysed data are similar between them and confirm the data of other studies.

Conclusions: the findings of the comparison between the two areas of study are differences due to environmental factors (day care attendance, infections, environmental pollution…) and similarities due to the fact that they are diseases with an important genetic base, not forgetting some foreign factors to the process such as the lack of universalization of pediatric assistance in the rural area.