Accuracy of parental and child's report of changes in symptoms of childhood asthma.
This cohort study was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of parental and child's reports of changes in asthma symptoms. Fifty three asthmatic children and their parents were interviewed at enrollment and after 4 and 8 weeks. The outcomes were parental and child's reports of changes in asthma symptoms, changes in mean daily symptom scores and changes in pulmonary function. Among patients 6 to 10 years old, parental reports correlated more strongly than child's reports with changes in mean daily symptom scores (r: 0.54 vs 0.23). In patients aged 11 years or older, parental and child's reports correlated comparably with changes in mean daily symptom scores (r 0.63 vs 0.57). In both age groups, neither parental nor child's reports correlated significantly with changes in pulmonary function. The relatively low coefficient of correlation between parental,child report with symptom score suggests that these may not be very accurate reflections of change in asthma status. Nevertheless, for the age group 6 to 10 year, parental reports are more reliable than child reports, while both are comparable in the age group 11-18 years.
Zhang
Linjie
L
Department of Maternal and Child Health, Federal University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande RS, Brazil. zhanglinjie63@yahoo.com.br
Avila
Laila
L
Leyraud
Luciana
L
Grassi
Sinar
S
Raquel
T
T
Bonfanti
Thiago
T
Ferruzzi
Emerson
E
D000293:Adolescent; D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory; D009035:Mothers; D010366:Peak Expiratory Flow Rate; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results