Prevalence of self-perceived allergic diseases and risk factors in Italian adolescents

The aim of the study was to assess the symptoms prevalence of allergic diseases in a population of 11-15 yr old schoolchildren, to evaluate the associations between asthma and other symptoms and identify risk factors for asthma, rhinitis and eczema syndromes. A sample of 481 students was studied using an International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire. Prevalence of different kind of self-reported symptoms was calculated. Using a logistic regression approach, we tried to identify risk factors for three syndromes - rhinitis, eczema and asthma. The highest and the lowest prevalence rates of self-reported symptoms were recorded for rhinitis (43.6%) and for eczema (8.1%), respectively. The prevalence of asthma was 15.7%. Univariate analysis showed a mutual association between wheeze and rhinitis symptoms. Multivariate logistic regression model for eczema syndrome revealed female gender as a significant risk factor. The polytomic logistic multivariate regression revealed female gender and family history of allergy as significant risk factors for rhinitis syndrome only, and maternal smoking and familial allergy for rhinitis and asthma together. In particular, familial allergy yields a 400% higher chance of developing asthma and rhinitis together. The synergistic effect of familial allergy on rhinitis and asthma syndromes suggests the implementation of preventive measures in children with family history of these diseases.