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Breath Sounds in Epidemiology

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Breath Sounds

Abstract

From all adventitious breath sounds, the only one that could be spoken of in terms of epidemiology is “wheeze”. This term has been used widely (on its own or in conjunction with other terminology) in numerous epidemiological studies carried out in the general population. This chapter deals with the different ways health professionals and patients (children) and patients’ parents understand this term and also with the validity of questions including this or similar terms to investigate the prevalence of asthma and related diseases. It includes a specific section of question validation both against physician’s diagnosis and bronchial hyperresponsiveness. The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood is used as a paradigm of how the term “wheeze” has been used, within a standardised methodology, based on validated written and video questionnaires translated to many languages, to establish a world map of the symptom prevalence, severity and time trends of asthma in children.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paediatrics, “Santa Lucia” University General Hospital, Cartagena, Spain

    Patricias W. Garcia-Marcos

  2. Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    M. Innes Asher & Philippa Ellwood

  3. Respiratory and Allergy Units, Arrixaca Children’s University Hospital, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Luis Garcia-Marcos

  4. IMIB Bio-health Research Institute of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Luis Garcia-Marcos

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  1. Patricias W. Garcia-Marcos
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  2. M. Innes Asher
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  3. Philippa Ellwood
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  4. Luis Garcia-Marcos
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Correspondence to Luis Garcia-Marcos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Respiratory and Allergy Unit, Third Department of Paediatrics “Attikon” Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Kostas N. Priftis

  2. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Leontios J. Hadjileontiadis

  3. Division of Child Health, University of Western Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital, Perth, Australia

    Mark L. Everard

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Garcia-Marcos, P.W., Asher, M.I., Ellwood, P., Garcia-Marcos, L. (2018). Breath Sounds in Epidemiology. In: Priftis, K., Hadjileontiadis, L., Everard, M. (eds) Breath Sounds. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71824-8_4

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