Adherence to therapy regimen by children with asthma and their parents

INTRODUCTION: Strict compliance with medical advice is a prerequisite for complete asthma control. Inadequate compliance with recommendations reduces the effectiveness of treatment, increases the costs of therapy and the number of related complications. AIM: To try to answer the question: To what extent is it, and what determines the adherence to therapy by children suffering from bronchial asthma and their parents? MATERIAL AND METHODS: The survey was conducted in 2019 among 109 children with bronchial asthma aged 7–18 years (mean age: 12.5 ±0.97) treated at the University Children’s Hospital in Lublin and their parents. The research applied the Morisky-Green test and the VAS Scale for self-assessment of the degree of cooperation, as well as an original questionnaire. RESULTS: The conducted research demonstrated that a large percentage of parents (91.74%) declare that their child complies with the therapy throughout the disease, but 44.44% of them express the fear of medicating their children with GCSs. Non-compliance with the therapy by the children subject to our analysis was mainly due to: resolution or alleviation of symptoms of the disease (45.83%), reluctance to take medications every day (44.43), and difficulties in using the inhaler (16.67%). CONCLUSIONS: In the investigated group of children with asthma and their parents, compliance with medical recommendations and, consequently, the therapy used, was not optimal and depended mainly on the severity of the disease, the child’s age and knowledge about the treatment. There is a need for continued education of asthmatic children and their parents about recommended therapy.