Original Article
Passive Smoking and Respiratory Symptoms among Children in Tertiary Care Hospital of Sindh
Abstract
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Background: Passive exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in the home and other places, and active smoking throughout later childhood all have an impact on the respiratory health of children. Parental smoking has been associated with respiratory symptoms and deteriorated lung function in children.
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Objective: This study aims to determine the prevalence of respiratory symptoms among children and their association with passive smoking and respiratory symptoms among children aged up to 12 years in selected tertiary care hospitals in Sindh.
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Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study, conducted in two tertiary care hospitals from where 217 children aged up to 12 years were selected who attended the pediatric OPD for a routine checkup.
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Results: A total of 217 children with a mean age of 6.4 years (±5.0) years participated in this study. Approximately 73.6 % of children between 0-6 years and 85% between 7-12 years had cough respectively.
The results show a significant association between the smoking status of parents and respiratory health among children (0.049), according to the analysis symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath while running/walking, and getting tired p-values 0.038, 0.035, and 0.003 easily show statistically significant association whereas phlegm production shows non-significant (p-value 0.380) association with passive smoking exposure among children up to 12 years of age, experienced in last 30 days for more than 2 times/week.
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Conclusion: Children's health experts should discuss the negative effects of smoking and the necessity of reducing exposure to secondhand smoke; parents should be informed about these issues and advised not to smoke in front of children.
- Keywords: Respiratory effects, children, passive smoking, tobacco, Pakistan.
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