Asthma in the community Observations by the Swiss Sentinel Surveillance Network over a ten year period (1988-1997)

Purpose: The overall prevalence and incidence of asthma attacks reported by primary care physicians (general practitioners, general internists and paediatricians) between 1988 and 1997 was assessed. Special attention was paid to the observation of seasonal patterns in different age groups of the consulting population.Methods: About 200 private practice physicians participated in the collection of data each year. Only data from doctors who reported 39 weeks or more each year were included in the analysis. Physicians were recruited on the basis of a stratification by geographic area, sociodemographic characteristics and speciality, with even distributions over the whole country. They represent about 3% of all family practitioners in Switzerland. Weekly attack rates per physician were investigated using time series analysis. Seasonal smoothing was used to visualise and explore the series.Results: Asthma attack rates (all ages) increased from 5.7 attacks per physician (0.18 per 100 consultations) in 1988/1989...