ASTHMA IN SAUDI ARABIA: RISK FACTORS AND PHARMACOTHERAPY

2016-12-10T00-22-31Z
Source: Indo American Journal of Pharmaceutical Research
Mohamed A. Hammad, Khaled M. Alakhali, Manal Hattan, Dzul Azri Mohamed Noor, Syed Azhar Syed Sulaiman, Abeer M. Kharshid, Ahmed A. Khamis.
Asthma is a chronic disease of airways; that is widely characterized by an increased responsiveness to a large variety of stimuli, airway inflammation and obstruction. Responsiveness to the treatment of asthma is good but sometimes resistance develops, and variability in symptoms also occurs due to the limited therapy adherence and awareness of patients. A cross-sectional survey was conducted at Armed Forces Hospital Southern Region, Khamis Mushait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, May 2014, to evaluate the risk factors of asthma and the pharmacotherapy used by patients. A self-administered questionnaire was answered by 207 asthmatic people aged ≥15 years. They responded to questions regarding demographics, risk factors for asthma, its severity, drug used for asthma therapy. Most of the asthma risk factors are an allergy (71.5%), and family history (60.9%). Some patients, especially the elderly use non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (26.5%) and aspirin (5.8%). Most of the asthmatic patients had mild intermittent asthma (69.6%). Patients used an inhaler (61.4%), most of them prefer to use Ventolin inhaler (78.3%) and the majority of them non-compliance for pharmacotherapy (76%). Subjects in past month got shortness of breath once or twice in a week (61.4%). Patients wake up once or twice during the month because of asthma symptoms (20.3%). Nearly half of them have increased symptoms of asthma in winter (56.5%), and less than half of cases had proper control of asthma (48.3%). The majority of patients were non-compliance and used Ventolin. Most of respondents had allergy and family history of asthma.


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