Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are one of the major problems of childhood in developing countries. The objective of the study was to obtain the incidence of ARI and its risk factors in Antalya, Turkey.
Methods: We carried out a prospective cohort study on 204 infants who were born between 1 November and 31 December 1997, in the area of two primary health-care units in the Antalya city center. The research group was followed periodically every 2 months by home visits and the infants were investigated to determine their symptoms of ARI. The weight and length of children were measured in every home visit. Additional questions about socioeconomic status, some environmental characteristics, and nutrition practice were asked. Data were entered into the computer and the Z-scores were calculated by the Epi Info 5 package program. The incidence rates, relative risks and confidence intervals were calculated by Microsoft Excel version 5.0 program.
Results: The incidence of ARI was 6.53 episodes per child per year among the children in the research group. The factors that influenced the incidence of ARI were lack of mother's and father's education, heating by wood stove, being a low-birthweight infant, not being completely breast-fed in the first 4 months of life and being stunted. There were no associations between the number of persons per room or smoking status of family members with ARI incidence.
Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that ARI were also associated with some socioeconomic, environmental and nutritional status characteristics such as paternal education, house ownership, breast-feeding, stunting, prematurity and burning of biomass fuels in Turkey.