Associated Factors and Disability Burden among Adolescent and Adult Nigerians with Bronchial Asthma

Abstract

Background: Bronchial asthma is a global health issue affecting the socio-economic, financial, psycho-social, and emotional well-being of  individual patients. It is a major non-communicable disease that affects children, adolescents, and adults. Bronchial asthma has been  linked with a high burden of physical limitation and functional disability.

Aim/objective: This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of disability and its predictors in adolescents and adult patients treated for bronchial asthma.

Method: This is a facility-based cross-sectional study involving 106 randomly selected patients, and randomly selected asthmatic patients  attending the General Out-Patient Department and Respiratory Clinics were recruited for this study. A structured questionnaire was used  to collect the socio-demographic characteristics and the level of disability, which was assessed with WHODAS 2.0 short-form having a five- point ordinal scale, ranging from 1 to 5. Data was analyzed with SPSS version 16. Frequency, mean, and standard deviation were used to  summarize the data. Associations between variables were assessed by using the chi-squared (χ2) test and Student’s t-test. Associations  between the independent effects of variables were assessed by using Poisson regression analysis. The level of statistical significance was  set at a p-value of 0.05. 

Results: This study included 32 (30.2%) males and 74 (69.8%) female participants with a mean age of 35.82±0.56 years. More than half of both male (n=19, 59.3%) and female (n=49, 66.2%) participants reported no disability, while only 1 male and 5  females reported severe disability. The differences were not statistically significant (p>0.05). The mean disability in this study was 2.1,  suggesting low disability based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health severity range. However, age  (CI=0.998-1.003), BMI (CI=0,994-1.013), and duration of disability (CI=1.001-1.002) were the significant predictors of disability. 

Conclusion:  This study showed that individuals with asthma have a low burden of disability. Age, BMI, and duration of disability were the most  important predictors of disability burden. The finding of a low asthma prevalence of disability in asthma emphasizes the need to  incorporate disability assessment into asthma management.