Many children with asthma think they are using their asthma inhaler medications correctly when they are not.
Many children with asthma think they are using their asthma inhaler medications correctly when they are not. This makes it very difficult to keep their asthma under control. A new study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) finds African American school children, along with their parents, had misplaced confidence in their asthma inhaler technique.
“We know from past studies that both parents and children overestimate the ability of children to properly use their inhaler,” says Anna Volerman, MD, lead study author. “We examined whether parent and child confidence were the same and whether either was a good sign of the child’s actual ability to use the inhaler correctly. We found most parents and children overestimated the children’s ability based on high confidence by the child – despite inhaler misuse.”
The study surveyed 65 pairs of parents and children at four Chicago public charter schools. The age range of the children was 8 to 14 years, most were male and 90 percent were African American. Most parents (80 percent) were female. Nearly all children (97 percent) misused their inhaler. One child demonstrated mastery. A small proportion of children and parents accurately matched their confidence to their child’s technique. Five percent of children who were confident in their inhaler technique used their inhaler without misuse, while 4 percent of children whose parents were confident properly used their inhaler. None of the parents underestimated the children’s skills.
Read more at American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
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