Asthma-like symptoms prevalence in five Turkish urban centers.

BACKGROUND Asthma, which is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways characterized by the infiltration of inflammatory cells, is a common cause of morbidity in adults. It is almost the third leading cause of preventable hospitalization in the developed countries and accounts for approximately millions of visits to emergency departments. METHODS In this study, we aimed to determine asthma prevalence in five urban centers in Turkey. Three of the cities were located in the middle-west region of the Anatolia one of them as located across the Mediterranean cost and the last one was in the north part of the country. Data of totally 2353 participants was collected by the trained interviewers, who visited the households and administered the questionnaire to the household members at or over the age of 15 years. RESULTS The prevalence of asthma was found to be 6.6 % and the difference of asthma prevalence between the urban centers was statistically non-significant (p = 0.059).