Stress and coping strategies between children with and without asthma and their parents

Asthma is the most common chronic illness in childhood in the US and affects over 4.8 million children. The prevalence of asthma significantly increased from 3.1% in 1981, to 4.3% in 1988 and to 6.9% in 1996. Despite the great strides in asthma research and clinical practice, current trends indicate that prevalence, morbidity, and mortality rates continue to escalate. Asthma is a chronic stressor for children and physiological symptoms can be aggravated by stress. In many clinical settings, parents are interviewed or given questionnaires to complete as proxy reporters for their child's health. Less often, parents are asked to report on how their children perceive life-related and disease-specific stressors, and how they cope with stress. It has been hypothesized that the coping strategies utilized with a stressful encounter may be more important to social functioning and self-esteem, than the frequency and severity of stressors experienced.;The purpose of the study was to measure differences in perceptions regarding the children's stressors and coping strategies as reported between children with asthma and their parents and children without asthma and their parents. The quantitative study utilized a convenience sample of 190 subjects, 45 child/parent couples with asthma and 50 child/parent couples without asthma. The Feel Bad Scale was used to measure children's perceptions about sources of stress and coping strategies were measured with the Schoolagers' Coping Strategies Inventory.;MANOVA reported a significant main effect by source of report (p =.001) with significant differences in two variables; stress frequency (p =.006) and coping frequency (p =.030). In this study, parents were not found to be reliable respondents regarding their children's behaviors. Children should participate in their health care and study tools should be given to the child for completion.