Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : We carried out an investigation towards more than 300 families in the preventive consultations of the French-speaking Community of Belgium (O.N.E.). More specifically we chose children aged from 11 to 15 month. We used a questionnaire managed by a nurse for the parents to measure the prevalence of asthma and allergic symptoms in these children and to study their risk factors of allergies. 58% of the children have at least a family antecedent of allergy signalled and 82.1% who have a mother who presents asthma antecedents. 55.1% had an allergic symptom during there first year of life. Only 2.9% of the children had a diagnosis of asthma. Moreover the study confirms association between respiratory complaints, cigarette smoking among parents and the presence of domestic animals in the environment of the child. In the families with allergic antecedents, 80.8% respond positive on the fact of take antiallergic measures against 20.2% in the families without allergic antecedents. This work confirms the importance of allergies in preventive consultations of children and shows the necessity to follow regularly the evolution of these health problems in order to inform parents and to carry out preventive actions adapted to the knowledge and the perception of risk of each family.