The potential battle in the war of asthma symptom control can be a psychological one, as per a recently concluded study.

The study went on to reveal that the primary reason why many asthmatic children in the United States do not take their medications as per medical advice is the leeriness of their parents for asthma medications.

Kelly Conn, M.P.H., a senior research coordinator at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author of the study, said that asthmatic children can get virtually free from all such symptoms with modern-day preventive medications.

From News-Medical.Net:

To see if parents’ beliefs about their children’s medicines might be influencing how dependably they administered the drugs, the Rochester team analyzed data from parents of 622 children in Southeast Michigan who reported use of at least one preventive asthma medication.

First, parents were asked to complete a Beliefs About Medications Questionnaire (BMQ), a survey that measures two often-conflicting realms of parents’ perceptions of their children’s medications – the necessity, or the extent to which they believed a child’s sickness necessitated taking it, versus the concern, or the extent to which a parent worried about possible risks associated with the drugs, such as side effects and potential for dependency.

Not unlike a “cost-benefit” analysis, a differential score was calculated by subtracting the concern score from the necessity score; this served as a weighed appraisal of each parent’s beliefs.

“We knew that parents often hold opposing attitudes on this issue, almost instinctively. It’s only natural to be caught between worrying about possible dangers related to the medicine and worrying the risks posed by the asthma itself,” Conn said.

The survey showed that, for 77 percent of parents, their perceived need for their child’s medication outweighed concerns about any possible risks. However, 17 percent – one in six parents – composed the opposite camp; they were more concerned about the drugs’ potential to affect harm than they were convinced of their child’s need for them.

Conn further remarked that these findings provide a new paradigm to improve the control of symptoms by just addressing the doubts and worries of parents of asthmatic children. He also said that things can be made better by providing accurate information about side-effects of the medications.

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