Hospital admissions of asthmatics by age and sex.

Asthma-related hospital admissions and the occurrence of new admissions were studied by age and sex in order to find the groups of asthmatics with high hospital admission rates. Data from the Finnish discharge register for 1972-92 were used to analyze the number of hospital admissions caused by asthma (defined in the International Classification of Diseases, 8th and 9th revisions, code 493) and occurrence of new asthma admissions between 1983 and 1992. A total of 192195 asthma-induced treatment periods were identified, 91223 for males and 100972 for females. Boys were admitted twice as often as girls at the age of 1 year (11.2 in comparison with 5.9 admissions per 1000 per year), whereas the admission rate was consistently higher among women 25-55 years of age. The highest asthma admission rate among the elderly was at age 73 for men (10.3 per 1000) and 75 for women (9.5 per 1000). Occurrences of new asthma admissions were most frequent at the age of 1 year (5.3 per 1000 for boys and 2.9 per 1000 for girls) and remained constant among those aged 50-80 years. Asthma is not only a disease of childhood and adolescence. The number of middle-aged and elderly asthmatics requiring hospitalization is markedly high.