Violencia familiar como factor asociado a la frecuencia de crisis asmáticas en niños. Estudio preliminar

Abstract

Introduction. Family violence (FV) occurs when someone in the family endowed with physical and/or psychological power aggresses another member. Not only children are vulnerable; adults and people with different capacities may also be victimized. Chronic stress suffered by children who are both victims of FV, or who witness FV, alters their immunological response, which aggravates illnesses such as bronquial asthma (BA). This illness is a chronic multifactorial problem in school age children. There is a stronger relation in the higher frequency of BA and FV in some cases. Methodology. A retrospective, observational, and analytic study was done in 40 patients seen at the Asthma Clinic of the Instituto Nacional de Pediatria (INP), in Mexico City, in order to establish the existence of family violence (FV), and its possible relation with an increase in crises of BA. Results. We could establish the existence of FV, in half of the cases studied, despite the fact that all of them belonged to nuclear families. Psychological aggression prevailed in most of the families. It was not possible to establish a meaningful relation between FV, and BA. Discussion. Literature on the subject indicates that there is an association between BA and FV. However, results in our pilot study did not establish such relation. It is possible that the close relation of our patients with the CA, and the small size of the sample are responsible for those results. Despite of this we emphasize the need for investigating FV and maltreatment in children (Mch). It is necessary to increase the size of the sample in order to obtain reliable results.