Background: Baker's asthma is a type of asthma that bakery employees develop after exposure to multiple allergens, including baking flour, wheat, rye, or yeast This study was done to assess the role of work-related symptoms and medical surveillance in detecting occupational Baker's Asthma, its incidence in Taif city in Saudi Arabia, and to detect the underlying causes.
Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from November 2016 to May 2017. This study included all bakery workers in Taif city. The collected data included subjects' age, diagnosis with baker's asthma, exposure to flour dust, smoking status, eye symptoms, and respiratory tract symptoms.
Results: A total of 47 subjects were recruited in this study. The mean±SD age was 37.4±8.7 years. The median years of exposure to flour dust was 6 years. The majority of subjects (n= 40, 85.1%) were non-smokers. only 2 subjects (4.3%) reported experiencing eye symptoms, while 4 subjects (8.5%) reported experiencing upper respiratory tract symptoms. In this sample population, none of the subjects were diagnosed with baker's asthma. Upper respiratory tract symptoms were found to be significantly more prevalent (p= 0.004) in subjects with severe exposure to flour dust (100%), than subjects with minimal (7.1%) and moderate exposure (5.6%). No statistically significant association was found between upper respiratory tract symptoms and each of smoking, eye symptoms, age, and years of exposure to flour dust.
Conclusion: Due to sample size limitations, further studies are encouraged to investigate baker's asthma in Saudi Arabia.
Key words: Backer's asthma, respiratory, medical surveillance, respiratory, occupational asthma
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