Prevalence of Allergic Disease in Kindergarten Age Children in Korea

Nam, Seung Yeon; Yoon, Hae Sun; Kim, Woo Kyung

Abstract

PURPOSE
Whereas allergic disease has the high morbidity during preschool age, there have not been sufficient surveys among the children in that age group. Thus we evaluated the prevalence of allergic disease among pre-school age children and risk factors which could cause or aggravate the disease. METHODS: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 593 kindergarten children, from 5 different kindergartens in Seoul between May and June, 2004. The standard for prevalence was whether one had been treated for allergic disease in past 12 months. Parents or guardians were surveyed to answer for each risk factor. RESULTS: For a question, "Have you been treated for allergic disease during past 12 months?", asthma showed 3.9% prevalence. For allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis were 11.1% and 20.1% respectively. Children with at least one of three diseases were 29.7%. Among children with asthma, risk factors were past history of bronchiolitis and paternal history of allergic disease. For allergic rhinitis, they were past history of bronchiolitis, mother's high education, and maternal history of allergic disease. For atopic dermatitis, risk factors were history of allergic disease of mother and father only. Other possible risk factors were statistically insignificant. CONCLUSION: Compared to the prevalence of primary school children (1995, 2000), asthma showed no difference but allergic rhinitis was lower and atopic dermatitis was higher. Among pre-school children, risk for allergic disease was higher with parental history of allergic disease. Especially the risk for respiratory allergy was even higher for those children with history of bronchiolitis.