Background: Atopic dermatitis is an ever more frequent disease in children; its etiology is unknown, although a genetic predisposition along with environment factors could be the origin.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of atopic dermatitis among school-children and the main associated risk factors.
Patients and methods: A randomized, stratified and conglomerated sample of 6 to 12 year-old school-children was obtained. Their parents answered the main ISAAC questionnaire, to which some variables were added, such as family and hereditary history, tobacco smoking exposure and nutritional condition according to the body mass index as associated risk factors.
Results: We found a prevalence of 3% for atopic dermatitis, and the presence of dermatitis symptoms during the last twelve months was found in 6.8% of the cases. Multivariate analysis demonstrated an elevated risk for atopic dermatitis in children of mothers with any type of allergic disease (OR 2.75, CI 95% 1.09 to 6.92, p = 0.031).
Conclusions: The frequency of atopic dermatitis as well as that of the symptoms was low, similar to previous reports conducted in Mexico. Maternal atopy was the only factor associated with atopic dermatitis.