Family risk factors in the recurrent course of acute respiratory infections in children aged 2-5 years
Authors:   Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine, Voloshin O.M. ,   Luhansk State Medical University, Rivne, Ukraine, Marushko Yu.V. ,   Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine, Savchenko I.I. ,   Luhansk State Medical University, Rivne, Ukraine, Osychniuk L.M. ,   Luhansk State Medical University, Rivne, Ukraine
Published: January 2024

Purpose - to find out the influence degree of particular family risk factors on the propensity of preschool children to the recurrent course of acute respiratory infections (ARI). Materials and methods. A total of 237 children (128 boys and 109 girls) aged 2-5 years, undergoing inpatient treatment on ARI, were involved in the clinical study. Initially, the number of ARI episodes were taken into account for the examined children during the previous year of their lives as well as the presence or absence of 19 potential family risk factors associated with recurrent respiratory infections (RRI). In addition, 2 integral indices of ARI recurrence - the infection index (InI) and the resistance index (RI) - were calculated. The statistical processing of the digital material obtained was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 28 licensed software. The odds ratio (OR) was calculated by crosstabulation. Besides, the Kaplan-Meier method with adjusted indicators was applied for statistical analysis. Results. The studied integral indicators of ARI recurrent course - InI and RI - are inversely correlated with the majority of the considered family risk factors, and the degree of connection strength for InI and RI is approximately the same. Almost 50% of the examined risk factors for RRI, specifically 9 out of 19, rise the chance of children belonging to a group with more frequent episodes of ARI. The most significant RRI risk factors were as follows: 1) mother’s and father’s susceptibility to RRI during their preschool age (OR=3.529; p<0.001; 95% CI: 1.791-6.954); 2) the presence of other children in family who have or had a tendency to RRI (OR=2.945; p=0.009; 95% CI: 1.292-6.717); 3) mother’s susceptibility to RRI during her preschool age (OR=2.742; p<0.001; 95% CI: 1.495-5.029); 4) maternal full-time employment at work during the previous year (OR=2.364; p=0.005; 95% CI: 1.287-4.342); 5) maternal and paternal secondary education (OR=2.333; p=0.031; 95% CI: 1.069-5.095). Conclusions. The prevalence of reported RRI risk factors among preschool children does not correlate with their significance in contributing to more frequent episodes of ARI. The Kaplan-Meier method makes it possible to determine the average and median age of children when the frequency of ARI episodes reaches the established threshold level under the influence of the considered risk factors for RRI. The results obtained substantiate the reasonability of using combined statistical methods to detect the most significant RRI risk factors and their combinations in preschool children. The study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the local ethics committees of the institutions mentioned in the paper. An informed parental consent was obtained for the study in children. No conflict of interests was declared by the authors.