Asthmatic Children Neglecting Their Drugs
Respiratory therapists have their work cut out for them trying to convince their young asthma patients to take their prescribed asthma medications as ordered by the doctor. Compliance rates are dismal at less than a third of the patients overall.
If ethnic factors are considered, white children have the best showing, with a third using inhaled corticosteroids in a three-month study. The data for black children is not as good. About 22 percent were using their drugs; among Hispanic children, the figure is 21 percent.
The disparities really start to show in trips to the emergency room. Overall, 39 percent of the black children in the study had visited the ER recently, compared to 18 percent of white children, and 24 percent of Hispanic youngsters.
Researchers reported that minority children were more likely to be overusing quick-acting drugs designed to treat an asthma attack in progress. Data indicate 26 percent of black children used rescue inhalers on a daily basis, as did 19 percent of Hispanic children and 12 percent of white children.
It is not definitely clear why the racial disparities exist, according a team led by Deidre Crocker, MD, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even after researchers weighed factors like family income, insurance coverage, household smoking and children's weight, race itself was still a factor in asthma control and medication use.
One potential reason for the differences, according to the CDC group, is black and Hispanic children are more likely than white children to get their medical care in an ER where prescriptions for preventive asthma medication are less likely to be written. Other possible reasons may center on parental distrust in the medications or the failure of doctors to prescribe the corticosteroids to minority children.
The study of 1,485 children appeared recently in the medical journal Chest.
But the results underscore the amount of work therapists still have before them when trying to get their young charges to take their drugs as ordered.