Developmental Profiles of Mucosal Immunity in Pre-school Children

Table 1

Demographic characteristics of the study population (𝑛=37).

Variables	Definition and description	Distribution
Demographic variables
Age	≤4 years of age	15 (45.5%)
	>4 years of age	22 (54.5%)
Gender	Female	21 (56.8%)
	Male	16 (43.2%)
Having attended childcare previously	No	8 (21.6%)
	Yes	29 (78.4%)
No. of days at pre-school	Low—<2 days/week for <1 year	13 (35.1%)
	High—≥2 days/week for ≥1 year	24 (64.9%)
Household environment variables
Having siblings	No	16 (43.3%)
No. of siblings	Yes	21 (56.7%)
		2.51^a (0.77)
ETS exposure in home	No	23 (63.2%)
	Yes	14 (37.8%)
Medical history
Having atopy	No	31 (83.8%)
	Yes	6 (16.2%)
Having been hospitalised	No	23 (62.2%)
	Yes	14 (37.8%)

^aThe arithmetic mean of the number of siblings (and standard deviation) is reported for this covariate.