查看文章

To assess cardiac autonomic modulation, measured by short‐term frequency domain analysis of heart rate variability (HRV), in children with asthma.

We conducted an observational study at a tertiary care teaching hospital. The sample consisted of 119 children aged 7 to 15 years with asthma and 56 age‐matched healthy controls. Frequency domain HRV measures included low‐frequency (LF; 0.04‐0.15 Hz), high‐frequency (HF; 0.15‐0.4 Hz), and LF/HF ratio. The LF and HF components were expressed in both absolute values of power (ms²) and in normalized units (nu).

Compared with healthy controls, asthmatic children had significantly higher value of HF (nu) (mean ± standard deviation: 45.9 ± 14.6 vs 40.7 ± 13.6; P = .02), and lower values of LF (nu) (54.1 ± 14.6 vs 59.3 ± 13.6; P = .02) and LF/HF ratio (median, interquartile range: 1.12, 0.82‐1.88 vs 1.59, 1.02‐2 …