[Prevalence of symptoms suggestive of allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis in adolescents (Spanish ISAAC Study Group)].

OBJECTIVE

There is a great concern about the worldwide prevalence of allergic disturbances in children and their assumed increase. In order to clarify these facts, the International Study of Asthma and Allergy in Children (ISAAC) group carried out a similar survey in 56 countries, including 463,801 adolescents. We report results of rhinoconjunctival and cutaneous allergies obtained from the 9 centers of the Spanish ISAAC group.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The questionnaire was directly translated from the English text and self-answered by 27,407 schoolchildren between 13-14 years of age from Almería, Barcelona, Bilbao, Cadiz, Cartagena, Castellón, Pamplona, Valencia and Valladolid. An Epi-Info software was used to assess contingency tables and odds ratios.

RESULTS

Only 9.4% of the adolescents said that they had ever suffered hay fever or allergic rhinitis, although 31.3% had nasal symptoms with allergic characteristics during the last 12 months and they were associated with conjunctival disorders in 15.4%. Of these teenagers, 10.3% had ever had atopic dermatitis and 6.2% continued to have active symptoms during the last 12 months. Severe forms were uncommon (0.7%). The female gender had high risk for nasal symptoms during the last 12 months (OR: 1.11; IC 95%: 1.11-1.17) and even higher for atopic dermatitis (OR: 1.3; IC 95%: 1.28-1.37). The frequency of rhinoconjunctivitis and cutaneous disturbances was different in the 9 centers.

CONCLUSIONS

We found differences in the prevalence of rhinoconjunctival and cutaneous atopic disorders between centers throughout Spain and now an investigation of the causes is needed. The diagnosis of atopic dermatitis was well recognized by adolescents (10.3%), on the contrary, they frequently (31.3%) reported nasal symptoms with the allergic characteristics but nevertheless do not identify them as such.