Impact of climate variability on exercise-induced bronchospasm in adolescents living in a semi-arid region

OBJECTIVETo examine the impact of climate variability on the occurrence of exercise-induced bronchospasm in the rainy and dry seasons of a Brazilian semi-arid region.METHODSThis sample comprised 82 adolescents aged 15 to 18 years, who were submitted to exercise-induced bronchospasm assessment on a treadmill and outdoors, during the rainy and the dry season. Anthropometric variables, sexual maturity and forced expiratory volume in the first second were analyzed. Air temperature and humidity, decline in forced expiratory volume in the first second (%) and frequency of bronchospasm were compared between seasons using the independent Student's t test, the Wilcoxon and McNemar tests, respectively. The level of significance was set at p