title: The therapy of pre-school wheeze: appropriate and fair?
abstract: The current study aimed to assess prevalence and distribution of use of asthma medication for wheeze in pre-school children in the community. We sent a postal questionnaire to the parents of a random population-based sample of 4,277 UK children aged 1-5 years; 3,410 participated (children of south Asian decent were deliberately over-represented). During the previous 12 months, 18% of the children were reported to have received bronchodilators, 8% inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and 3% oral corticosteroids. Among current wheezers these proportions were 55%, 25%, and 12%, respectively. Use of ICS increased with reported severity of wheeze, but did not reach 60% even in the most severe category. In contrast, 42% of children receiving ICS reported no or very infrequent recent wheeze. Among children with the episodic viral wheeze phenotype, 17% received ICS compared with 40% among multiple-trigger wheezers. Use of ICS by current wheezers was less common in children of South Asian ethnicity and in girls. Although a high proportion of pre-school children in the community used asthma inhalers, treatment seemed to be insufficiently adjusted to severity or phenotype of wheeze, with relative under-treatment of severe wheeze with ICS, especially in girls and South Asian children, but apparent over-treatment of mild and episodic viral wheeze and chronic cough.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Swiss Paediatric Respiratory Research Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: E S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Chauliac
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Silverman
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zwahlen
authors.forename: M-P F
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Strippoli
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Brooke
authors.forename: And C E
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Kuehni
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy*; D001993:Bronchodilator Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D012135:Respiratory Sounds
chemical_list: D001993:Bronchodilator Agents