Psychosocial functioning and stress-processing of children with asthma in the school context: differences and similarities with children without asthma.
OBJECTIVE
To characterize children with asthma by their stress processing at school and their psychosocial functioning. To establish similarities and differences between children with and without asthma.


METHODS
Participants were 79 children with asthma and 359 children without asthma (ages 8-12). Children completed questionnaires on stress processing and their well-being at school. Parents filled in a questionnaire on behavior problems, and teachers provided data on school performance and absence rate.


RESULTS
Children with asthma had higher scores on absence rates, teacher-rated well-being, internalizing behavior problems, occurrence of "rejection by peers," and use of aggression when coping with "problems with school work." However, using discriminant analyses, the groups could not reliably be distinguished from one another by these variables.


CONCLUSIONS
Children with asthma are similar to other children with regard to their stress processing at school and their psychosocial functioning. The value of conducting multivariate analysis over several univariate tests is underscored.
Röder
Irma
I
Section of Health Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Kroonenberg
Pieter M
PM
Boekaerts
Monique
M
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001249:Asthma / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012574:Schools; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires