Introduction: Very little is known about the prevalence of respiratory symptoms or their associations with other health conditions in Russia.
Methods: Between 2008-10 a sample of 983 men resident in Izhevsk, Russia took part in a cross-sectional survey. Presence of respiratory symptoms was determined from self-report of chronic productive cough and breathlessness assessed using the British Medical Research Council breathlessness scale. Self-reported physical and mental health were measured using the SF-12. Hypertension was assessed from mean blood pressure measured at the health check and/or self-reported use of anti-hypertensive medication. Other co-morbidities were assessed from self-report. Logistic regression models were fitted assessing the association between respiratory symptoms and co-morbidities. Linear regression models were fitted to investigate the association between respiratory symptoms and self-reported health scores. All models were adjusted for age, education, and smoking status.
Results: The age standardized prevalence of cough and breathlessness was 20.9% (prevalence with breathlessness MRC grade 3 or above 3.7%). The majority of men with respiratory symptoms (87.3%) were current smokers. Cough and breathlessness was associated with substantially worse self-reported physical and mental health (test for tend with severity of breathlessness p<0.001). Those with chronic cough and grade 3 or above breathlessness had higher odds of having hypertension (OR 3.03 95% CI 1.36, 6.74), diabetes (OR 10.55 (95% CI 2.69, 41.37), angina pectoris (OR 7.54 95% CI 3.61, 15.73), previous myocardial infarction (OR 7.61 95% CI 2.10, 27.4) and previous stroke (OR 6.61 95% CI 1.75, 23.34) compared to those without respiratory symptoms.
Conclusions: The prevalence of respiratory symptoms was high. Strong associations were found between respiratory symptoms and cardiovascular co-morbidities. These are of particular importance given the extremely high level of cardiovascular disease mortality in Russia.