Table 1.
Comparisons of demographic and other parent-reported baseline factors between children whose parents believed they were supposed to be periodic users and children whose parents believed they were supposed to be daily users of inhaled corticosteroids, N = 476.
| Periodic users (n = 250) |
Daily users (n = 226) |
p1 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Age in years, mean [SD] | 6.8 [3.0] | 7.6 [3.2] | 0.006 |
| Race/ethnicity | 0.06 | ||
| White | 46% (114) | 44% (99) | |
| Black | 21% (53) | 29% (66) | |
| Latino | 19% (47) | 19% (43) | |
| Other | 14% (36) | 8% (18) | |
| Parental education | 0.42 | ||
| High school or less | 24% (60) | 23% (52) | |
| Some college | 25% (61) | 32% (71) | |
| College graduation or more | 40% (125) | 46% (102) | |
| Household income | 0.83 | ||
| ≤$30,000 | 35% (79) | 38% (81) | |
| $30,001–$50,000 | 15% (34) | 15% (31) | |
| $50,001 or more | 51% (119) | 46% (58) | |
| Parental employment status | 0.04 | ||
| Unemployed | 38% (92) | 32% (71) | |
| Part-time | 37% (91) | 32% (73) | |
| Full time | 25% (63) | 36% (81) | |
| Insurance provider | 0.58 | ||
| Neighborhood Health Plan2 | 33% (83) | 29% (65) | |
| Other | 66% (167) | 72% (161) | |
| Asthma physical status score3, mean [SD] | 87.0 [16.0] | 81.0 [17.4] | <0.0001 |
| Expectations of functioning with asthma score, mean [SD]4 | 7.9 [2.2] | 9.0 [2.5] | 0.0005 |
| Competing family priorities score, mean [SD]5 | 12.7 [5.5] | 12.9 [5.2] | 0.78 |
| Medication concerns score, mean [SD]6 | 10.3 [2.5] | 11.9 [2.5] | <0.0001 |
| Provider interactions score, mean [SD]7 | 3.6 [1.8] | 3.3 [1.7] | 0.14 |
χ2 testing was used to evaluate categorical variables and T-tests and Wilcoxon Rank Sum for continuous variables.
Neighborhood Health Plan is a predominantly Medicaid-insured population that also includes privately insured patients.
Asthma physical status score was assessed by the Child Health Status Asthma (CHSA) measure, with a scale from 0 (worst status) to 100 (best status).
The expectation score ranged from 4 (low expectations) to 16 (high expectations) and was created by summing the results to the following four questions: “I believe my child can be symptom free most of the time,” “I expect asthma will not affect school/daycare attendance,” “I expect child can fully participate in gym,” and “I expect child will have no ER visits or hospitalization visits from asthma.” For each question, parents responded on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4).
Parents were asked to rate their frequency of worry in the previous 2 months in housing, home or neighborhood safety, job, personal/family relationships, income/making ends meet/keeping up with bills, parents’ own health/or other family member’s health and to respond on a 5-point Likert scale. The overall competing priorities score ranged 5 (worry “all of the time”) to 30 (“worry none of the time”).
The medication concern score was based on four questions with a score of 4 (high concerns) to 16 (low concerns). Parents were asked whether they agreed with the following statements: “Child’s asthma does not need medicine every day,” “Child will become dependent on medicines if given every day,” “Child does not need as much medicine as doctor prescribed,” “Sometimes stop giving child medicine to give body rest.” For each question, parents responded on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (4).
Interactions with the primary provider were assessed based on parent report to two questions: “How would you rate (Asthma Doctor)’s knowledge of your child’smedical history?” and “How would you rate (Asthma Doctor)’s knowledge about your child as a person (special abilities, concerns, fears)?” For each question, parents responded on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from excellent (1) to very poor (6). These two questions were summed to form the provider interactions score.