Incidence, prevalence, and agreement of parent reported wheezing and physician diagnosed asthma within the first 6 years of life: Results of a prospective birth cohort

Background: Wheezing disorders are heterogenous and common in early childhood, and they may already indicate asthma related problems later on. So far, studies have used different methods to evaluate asthma and wheezing related phenotypes among preschool children. We aimed to describe the occurrence of physician reported asthma, parent reported wheezing, and estimate their agreement within the first six years of life in a large German prospective birth cohort study. Methods: We included 623 children in the analysis. The annual incidence of physician diagnosed asthma and the annual prevalence of parent reported wh…