Abstract:
Background: Asthma attacks are life-threatening episodes that place a costly burden on the individual and the community in both high and low income countries including Ethiopia. There is scanty of information on the determinant of it in study area. So identifying determinant of asthma attacks play a vital role in reducing mortality and morbidity related to it.
Objectives: To identify determinants of asthma attack among adult asthmatic patients attending at public hospitals of West Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State of, Ethiopia.
Methods: Institutional based unmatched case control study design was conducted on public hospitals in West Shoa Zone from August 16 to October 16, 2021. In this study, 300 participants (100 cases and 200 controls) were included. Cases were adult asthmatic patients who had asthma attack at least once in the past 12 months while controls where adult asthmatic patients who had no asthma attack in the past 12 months prior to data collection period. All asthma attack cases were included in the study whereas two comparable controls were recruited consecutively after each case was enrolled until the sample size specified for each hospital is attained during the study period. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect data. After the data was entered into Epidata version 3.1, it was exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Bivariable logistic regression was first performed to select candidate independent variables for multivariable logistic regression model. Independent variables with a p value < 0.25 in bivariable binary logistic regression were entered into a multivariable logistic regression model. In the multivariable binary logistic regression model, independent variables with a p value < 0.05 were considered to significant determinants of outcome variable of the study.
Results: This study identified that upper respiratory tract infection (AOR = 5.89, 95% CI: 2.72, 12.79), obstructive sleep apnea (AOR = 3.48, 95% CI: 1.58, 7.66), Passive smoker (AOR = 5.93, 95% CI: 2.07, 16.96), spring season (AOR = 2.49, 95% CI: 1.27, 4.89), Pet ownership (AOR = 3.63, 95% CI: 1.82, 7.22), Kitchen smoke (AOR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.6, 4.6), Rhinitis (AOR = 4.49, 95% CI: 2.25, 8.93) and being jobless (AOR = 5.68, 95% CI: 1.94, 16.68) were significant determinants of asthma attack.
Conclusion: In this study, Upper respiratory tract infection, obstructive sleep apnea, passive smoker, spring season, kitchen smoke, pet ownership, rhinitis and being jobless were identified as significant determinants of asthma attack. Because asthma attacks are life-threatening events, effective methods
