Caregiver mental health affects kids' asthma care

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children with asthma whose caregivers have mental health problems are more likely to be hospitalized for asthma, a new study shows.

"Our findings suggest that awareness ... of the caregiver's mental health may be an important part of an asthma management program," Dr. E. Sherwood Brown of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and colleagues conclude.

Some studies have suggested that psychiatric disorders in caregivers may be related to more frequent hospitalizations and unscheduled clinic visits for children with asthma. To better understand how a caregiver's mental health may affect a child's asthma treatment, Brown's team evaluated psychiatric symptoms in 175 caregivers of children hospitalized with asthma.

They found that nearly 27 percent of the caregivers were currently suffering a bout of depression, while 20.6 percent were suffering from an anxiety disorder. Children whose caregivers scored high on two or more tests for psychiatric symptoms had been hospitalized 64 percent more often due to asthma than children whose caregivers scored lower.

Children whose caregivers were depressed made more unscheduled clinic visits, while those whose caregivers had an anxiety disorder were hospitalized more frequently.

There are a number of reasons why psychiatric problems in a caregiver could contribute to a child's hospitalization due to asthma, Brown and his team note; for example, it may be more difficult for caregivers with mental health problems to help a child stick to recommended preventive treatment.

"This relationship deserves additional investigation because successful treatment of depressive and anxiety symptoms in the caregiver may reduce the need for asthma-related services for the child," they conclude.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, December 2006.