Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease in children.

It is responsible for significant days of school absenteeism.

It gives financial burden to the family by frequent visits to OPD and emergency department.

Child has to spend many sleepless nights during the period of symptoms.

It also disturbs the sleep of parents and the whole family.

Sleepless nights leads to decrease in work efficiency of child and parents.

According to the first study of its kind on 3900 Australian children,between the age of 1-15 years,the researcher observed that ,wheezing episodes in children with stressed parents were far more than the children with parents having no stress or negligible stress.

Specifically they observed that the wheezing episodes were 77% more in children of parents leading a stressful life with moderate to severe stresses, 55% more in children with mother having depression and 40% more in children with parents facing financial hardships.

Environmental factors which trigger asthma are well known in the form of pollutants,allergens,environmental tobacco smokes which are modifiable.

Depression and anxiety in children are also known to trigger asthma.

But Psychosocial factors, like parental stress due to workload or career making,depression and anxiety in parents, and financial hardships faced by parents are less recognised or ignored factors which may trigger symptoms of asthma.

 

In the care of asthmatic children, psychosocial factors should be addressed so as to control the symptoms of asthma

REFERENCES:

Shahunja KM, Sly PD, Mamun A. Trajectories of psychosocial environmental factors and their associations with asthma symptom trajectories among children in Australia. Pediatric Pulmonology. 2023:ppul.26733. doi: 10.1002/ppul.26733