Parental Beliefs About Medications and Medication Adherence Among Urban Children With Asthma
Section snippets
METHODS
We obtained data for this study from a sample of children ages 3–7 participating in a larger, unrelated school-based intervention in 2002.23 All parents of children entering the Rochester City School district who indicated asthma on their school health assessment were contacted by telephone to assess the child's asthma severity. Children with mild persistent to severe persistent symptoms were eligible for enrollment. The response rate for the entire sample of children enrolled in the
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the 67 children included in the sample. Fifty-four percent of the children were male. The majority of the children were African American (61%), 8% white, and 31% other racial backgrounds. Twenty-five percent of the children were Hispanic and most had Medicaid insurance (69%). Thirty-six percent of the parents described their child as having moderate to severe symptoms.
Table 2 describes the overall beliefs about medications and medication
DISCUSSION
The majority of parents of urban children with asthma in this community-based sample felt strongly that their child's medications were necessary for maintaining their child's health. However, one third of the parents had strong concerns about their child's medications. Additionally, less than one quarter of the parents reported being completely adherent with their child's controller asthma medications. Parental concerns about medications had a negative influence on medication adherence.
These
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research for this article was funded by a grant from the Halcyon Hill Foundation. We wish to thank Maria Fagnano, BA, for her assistance in preparing the manuscript and Kimberly J. Sidora-Arcoleo, MPH, for her assistance with data analysis.
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Presented in part at the Pediatric Academic Societies' Meeting, San Francisco, Calif, May 2004.