Seasonal variation of hospital morbidity from asthma in Poland

: The aim of the paper was to describe and compare the seasonal hospital admissions among different subgroups of patients due to bronchial asthma with a special focus on demographic characteristic. Data were collected during the calendar year 2003. Data were gathered for 32,933 patients from 522 hospitals across Poland with confirmed diagnosis of bronchial asthma or status asthmaticus. We noticed a distinct seasonal patterns in the number of hospitalizations due to asthma. Most cases clustered in the beginning and the end of the calendar year. Beside these hospitalization peaks, we observed a less pronounced increase of hospital admissions in spring and through summer months. It was most distinctly pronounced in children. It was also shown that gender of patients did not affect seasonal variability in our study. Emergency admissions to hospitals were less frequent in summer months, whereas elective admissions presented no such distinct pattern. The data revealed differences in seasonality in asthma hospital admissions in various age groups.