Managing children with asthma

Behavioural problems are more common when parents of young children with asthma have no personal experience with asthma. Apparently, fear of making their child's symptoms worse prevents these parents from responding appropriately when the child misbehaves. If the parent is anxious or uncertain about how to manage these issues, a vicious circle develops in which the child has even more tantrums and oppositional behaviour.Researchers from the University of Manchester, England, sought to better understand this phenomenon in a group of 663 asthmatic children. To determine the children's risk for asthma, the researchers tested the parents for six common allergies. An individual's sensitivity is gauged by evaluating the skin reaction in a skin prick test with the allergen. Approximately one quarter of the preschoolers were found to be at high risk because both parents had positive results to skin prick test; about half were at medium risk, when one parent had a positive test result. For the remaining children, low risk was defined as both parents having negative skin prick test results and no family history of allergic disease. When the children were 3 years old, parents completed questionnaires regarding child behaviour problems, family functioning and parental mental health. It was found that the parents were more likely to list problem behaviours occurring more often when their offspring had experienced at least three episodes of wheezing with shortness of breath. These problems were most common when the parents did not have allergies themselves. The researchers suggest that counselling can help these parents cope with their children. Parents may benefit from advice about managing their child calmly and authoritatively when asthma symptoms are present.