An Emergency Department Management on Acute Asthma Exacerbations in Children Younger than 12 Years

Objectives: The main objective of the study is to clinically audit and analyse the acute asthma exacerbations in children younger than 12 years regarding management of emergency department. Methods: This clinical audit was done in Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur during January 2020 till June 2020. We retrospectively revised all the files of children aged 0–12 years who were visited for acute asthma in the Paediatric ED of Hospital. All the patients with a diagnosis of “acute asthma,” “wheezing bronchitis,” and “bronchospasm” were included. Results: A total of 864 patients were seen in the Emergency Department during the study. Of these, a total of 293 patients were seen for a presentation of acute asthma. As some patients had multiple visits, the 293 records represented 278 unique patients. For assessing age and gender distribution of the patients, only data from the first visit were used. Otherwise, each record was treated independently for the purpose of analyses. Conclusion: It is concluded that acute asthma management still remains an area of medical practice that continues to have long-standing difficulties.

Analysis of eosinophil and lymphocyte concentrations on the incidence of mild and severe acute asthma exacerbations

Introduction: Exacerbation of asthma is an episode characterized by an increase in symptoms of progressive shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and a progressive decrease in lung function. Among the cells involved and activated in acute exacerbations in asthma are eosinophils and lymphocytes.

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on children with asthma in Jordan: a parental questionnaire

ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of a 10-week lockdown on children with asthma aged 4–17 years in terms of presentations to the emergency department (ED), frequency of admissions, compliance with medications and changes in pulmonary function testing results.Design and settingA questionnaire-based cross-sectional study using Google Forms to collect parents’ and caregivers’ responses after they consented to participation.ResultsA total of 374 parents/caregivers were contacted and 297 (79%) responded. The majority of the children were male (188 or 63%) and 49.8% were aged 7–12 years. More than half of the participants (194 or 65%) reported improved compliance with medications and spacer use. There was a significant reduction in the number of presentations to the ED from 137 to 80 and admissions to hospital from 56 to 24 during the 10-week lockdown period compared with the same time period in the previous year (p≤0.0001). Around 25% of the participants used telemedicine by phone and social media applications for communication with their treating physician and 59 (80%) described it as easy and smooth.ConclusionThe national lockdown in Jordan due to the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a fall in emergency presentations and hospital admissions for acute asthma exacerbations. Parental responses indicate that fears focused around COVID-19 were associated with enhanced compliance with use preventer medications during the lockdown.