Parental knowledge, attitude toward asthma, and its correlation with compliance of asthma management in children

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Asthma is one of the common chronic illnesses in children affecting about 10-15% worldwide. Proper management of asthma depends on the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the parents towards asthma which in turn will enable early intervention and prompt management. OBJECTIVE: To determine the parental knowledge, attitude towards asthma and its correlation with the compliance of asthma management in children. METHODOLOGY: It is a cross-sectional observational study carried out in a tertiary care hospital between January 2020 to December 2020. RESULTS: The study included 112 participants. Mothers were the predominant caregivers (72.3%). Family history of asthma was noticed in 42.8%. 88.4% knew that their child was suffering from asthma, 18% felt that asthma is contagious. Change in the climate (91.1%), dust (60.7%), respiratory infection (49.1%), and smoke (44.6%) were the common triggers. 15% tried an alternate system of medication. Majority (87%) had moderate knowledge, 92 (82%) showed good practices. 56 (50%) exhibited negative attitude. Nearly 60% of the participants preferred inhaler therapy. The causes for non-adherence to inhaler therapy were fear of addiction (46.7%), child refusing inhaler (40%), cost of therapy (40%) and child being symptom free in between episodes (37.8%). CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed a moderate level of knowledge and good practices towards childhood asthma among the parents of asthmatic children. Better knowledge and good practices among the parents strongly correlated with mother being the participant of the study, educational status, positive family history of asthma and persistent asthma symptoms. Better knowledge and positive attitude towards asthma was associated with adherence to inhaler therapy.