Relationship between parent mood and resilience and child health outcomes in pediatric asthma.

INTRODUCTION

Asthma is the most common pediatric chronic disease and disproportionately affects urban, minority, and disadvantaged youth. This study explored the relationship between parent and child psychosocial functioning and asthma-related health outcomes in a sample of at-risk children with asthma. We hypothesized that greater parent resilience would be associated with better parent mood, more symptom-free days (SFDs), better child mood, and less child anxiety. Further, we hypothesized that parent resilience would moderate the relationship between parent mood and SFDs.

METHOD

We performed a secondary analysis of baseline cross-sectional enrollment data. Parents of African American children on Medicaid with persistent asthma reported their children's asthma SFDs and their own measures of parent quality of life, mood, and resilience, and child mood and anxiety.

RESULTS

Baseline data from 217 parents (92.2% female, Mage = 33.8 years ± 9.5) of children (Mage = 6.6 years ± 2.3) were available. Parent resilience was significantly associated with parent mood. Better parent-reported quality of life (QOL) and mood were significantly associated with more child asthma SFDs. In contrast to our hypothesis, parent resilience did not moderate the relationship between parent mood and SFDs.

DISCUSSION

Higher parent-reported QOL and mood were significantly associated with better parent report of child asthma SFDs. Although parent resilience was associated with parent mood, it did not moderate the relationship to child SFDs. Future research is warranted to better understand the unique contribution of resilience in families with children with asthma. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).