Fathers and Asthma Care: Paternal Involvement, Beliefs, and Management Skills.
OBJECTIVE
To compare asthma care roles of maternal and paternal caregivers, and examine associations between caregiver involvement and the outcomes of adherence, morbidity, and parental quality of life (QoL).


METHODS
Mothers and fathers in 63 families of children, ages 5-9 years, with persistent asthma completed semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Adherence was measured via electronic monitoring. Paired t tests compared parental asthma care roles, and analysis of covariance, controlling for socioeconomic status, evaluated associations of asthma outcomes with caregiver involvement scores.


RESULTS
Mothers had higher scores on measures of involvement, beliefs in medication necessity, and on four subscales of the Family Asthma Management System Scale interview (Asthma Knowledge, Relationship with Provider, Symptom Assessment, and Response to Symptoms). Maternal QoL was lowest when both maternal and paternal involvement was high. Paternal involvement was associated with increased morbidity.


CONCLUSIONS
There is room for enhancement of fathers' asthma care roles. Higher levels of paternal involvement may be driven by family need.
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, dfriedman@partners.org.
Deborah
D
Friedman
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Bruce
B
Masek
Massachusetts General Hospital, and.
Esteban
E
Barreto
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Lee
L
Baer
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Allen
A
Lapey
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Eduardo
E
Budge
Bradley/Hasbro Children's Research Center, Brown Medical School.
Elizabeth L
EL
McQuaid
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology*; D017028:Caregivers; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019468:Disease Management; D005220:Fathers / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
adherence; asthma; co-parenting; fathers; paternal; pediatric; quality of life