Relationship between nutritional status and asthma severity in patients attended at the National Institute of Child Health, Peru

Abstract

Background: Asthma is a disease that mainly affects the pediatric population. Some studies have reported that being overweight is associated with impaired lung function, decreased response to medical therapy, and increased severity of asthma.Objective: To determine the relationship between nutritional status and the severity of asthma in patients under 8 to 17 years of age treated at the National Institute of Child Health, from 2016 to 2019. Methodology: Cross-sectional study of secondary source. The dependent variable was the severity of asthma categorized as; mild and moderate to severe. The main independent variable was the nutritional status through the body mass index categorized into thinness, healthy weight, overweight and obesity. Regarding the statistical analysis, the categorical variables were presented in frequencies and percentages, and the numerical variables in measures of central tendency and dispersion according to the evaluation of normality. For the bivariate analysis, the Fisher exact test was used, considering p<0.05 significant.Results: We incluided 196 medical records of patients diagnosed with asthma were reviewed, 64.8% were women and the average age was 10.7 years. It was found that 35.2% presented obesity and 9.2% had moderate-severe asthma severity. No statistical significance was found between asthma severity and nutritional status.Conclusion: Approximately one in ten patients had moderate-severe asthma severity. One in three patients had obesity. No statistically significant differences were found.