Adolescent asthma: the underdiagnosis is too common, especially among girls

Asthma in adolescents is rarely diagnosed, especially among girls, say the findings of the international survey Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children, presented in Paris, during a press conference by the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education.

As part of the study Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children (HBSC), a health questionnaire is submitted every four years for students aged 11, 13 and 15 years in Europe and North America. Six countries have included items on asthma in the 2002 edition of the survey: the Flemish Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France (8185 participants), and the Netherlands.

The results of this survey highlight the under-diagnosis of respiratory disease in the adolescent population: the percentage of students with asthma and some have recently consulted a medical care service clearly shows lower than students with recent symptoms of asthma.

While 14.9% of students reported having been diagnosed with asthma by a physician, the proportion of young participants who reported having recently exhibited symptoms of asthma is more important. Thus, during the twelve months preceding the survey, 19.2% of students surveyed felt whistling in the chest, 22.8% of them have developed the symptoms to stress and they were 23.5 % to make a nocturnal dry cough off infection period.

Moreover, these data also show that under-diagnosis is particularly prevalent in the population of girls. Despite the fact that they report being more frequently prone than boys to these symptoms, diagnoses of asthma are more common among adolescents than among females (17% against 12.88% on average).

Both observations are true at all ages included in the study groups. The fact that the under-diagnosis of asthma is higher among girls is particularly shouting to 11 years (18.6% of boys known asthmatics, against only 13% for girls).

As for the increased frequency of asthma symptoms among girls, it is particularly striking to 15 years (10.6% of probable asthma among boys against 16.4% for females).

According to experts who have analyzed the data, "the paradox between any diagnosis of asthma in girls and their likely higher asthma rates" could include physiological explanations, hormonal and / or psychosocial.

If this shift was observed in all the countries participating in this study, France is the only country where women underdiagnosis unfortunately becoming more common, are they.

A significant proportion of teenagers escaped the diagnosis of asthma, which exposes them to multiple risks, the authors conclude that evoke particular the worsening health of young patients due to lack of proper treatment (and sometimes because of taking inappropriate treatment), truancy, or the poor quality of life.