Prevalence of respiratory symptoms among university students in Belgrade

Background: Over the last three decades the prevalence of respiratory disease has been increasing worldwide. Recent studies have been shown that the prevalence of asthma in West European ranges from 6 to 9%, while of COPD is 8% worldwide. Despite the large number of epidemiological studies, there are only a few studies about the prevarence of chronic respiratory diseases among students. Objective: The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of respiratory symptoms among University Students in Belgrade, Serbia. Methods: We used a questionnaire based on the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ERCHS) protocol to collect data. Results: We have analysed respiratory symptoms in 5045 University students in Belgrade, mean age 21.5±1.7 years, 55.3% female. The majority of subjects were non-smokers (73.6%), but there were 26.4% current and 3.3% ex smokers. The most frequent symptoms were longstanding cough (17.2%), sputum production (12.1%), wheezing (10.3%) and morning cough (5.7%). Respiratory symptoms were more frequent in smokers than non-smokers (p vs 19.1%, p Conclusion: The prevalence of respiratory symptoms and smoking cigarettes among university students in Belgrade is high.