According to a study presented at the European Respiratory Society’s Annual Congress in Vienna on September 3, 2012, children’s asthma symptoms can worsen if there are problems among their parents at home.

Although many asthma patients do not take their medication when and how they are supposed to, the reason for this, prior to now, has not been clear. Now, the experts have looked into the most common reasons that physicians believe are behind the patients not taking their medication correctly.

To better understand the reasons behind this non-adherence, experts in the Netherlands analyzed, via electronics, how well the children were cooperating with taking their asthma drugs. It has already been well known that asthma patients who properly take their medication have less symptoms, and suffer less from wheeze and loss of breath, than children who do not take their asthma medication.

Although the testing clinic gave patients the option of how to better care for their asthma, a large number of children still did not comply, and the researchers wanted to understand why those children were still not taking their medication properly after the intervention.

The authors questioned the parents of 20 children with asthma, including the children who took their medication correctly, and those who were not cooperative with their treatment practices. Their answers were compared via an electronic monitoring system.

Parents of the children who were not adhering to their treatment plans all claimed they tried everything to make their kids stay on track. However, the results showed that these parents did not succeed in getting their children to take their medication properly. These parents said that a range of things going on in their lives were the reasons behind the kids not following the treatment regimen correctly.

These lifestyle issues included:

  • problems between the parents
  • money problems
  • parents’ schedules interfering with remembering to give the kids their medication

The authors note that children from the ages of 8 to 12 were often given the responsibility, by their parents, to be in charge of their own medication, which also showed to be ineffective.

Lead author, Professor Paul Brand, commented:

“As part of this qualitative study, we have recorded and analyzed a number of factors within the home and associated with family lifestyles which could be causing low adherence to asthma medication. It is crucial that healthcare professionals treating children with asthma carefully assess what these potential barriers could be so that appropriate interventions can be put in place to help correct the problems.”

David Supple, a parent of a child with asthma, added:

“Long-standing experience in our household certainly back this research up. It can be chaotic having four children and when we have given our son, Alex, responsibility over his medication to control his asthma, we have found his adherence slip away. We are conscious of this now and would encourage other parents to keep a close eye on their child’s level of adherence and to spot potential barriers before they become a problem.”

Written by Christine Kearney