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Affiliation
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Department of Epidemiology , Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health , Boston , MA , USA. |
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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE Childhood abuse has been found to be associated with adult-onset asthma; however, this association has not been studied in low and middle income countries with a high burden of gender-based violence, including childhood abuse. We examined the odds of asthma diagnosed at age 18 or older in relation to history of physical and sexual abuse among Peruvian pregnant women.
METHODS This cross-sectional study collected demographic characteristics, history of abuse and asthma diagnoses from 3081 pregnant women. Logistic regression procedures estimated adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (aOR,[95%CI]) for asthma diagnoses in relation to abuse.
RESULTS Overall, 71% of women reported a history of abuse (<18 years), and asthma was diagnosed among 2.6% of cohort participants. The prevalence of physical only, sexual only and both physical and sexual childhood abuse was 38%, 8% and 25%, respectively. History of physical only (1.16,[0.63-2.17]), sexual only (2.11,[0.92-4.84]) or both physical and sexual childhood abuse (1.75,[0.94-3.29]) were positively associated with increased odds of asthma, although the associations were not statistically significant in the multivariate analysis. However, the odds of asthma increased with increasing numbers of abuse events (ptrend = 0.01). Women who reported ≥3 abuse events had an increased odds of asthma (1.88,[1.06-3.34]).
CONCLUSION Our results do not provide convincing evidence that childhood abuse is associated with asthma among pregnant Peruvian women; however, we were able to demonstrate that an increased number of abuse events are associated with asthma. Further research is required to better understand the effects of abuse on asthma.
Language: en |