BOSTON — Having asthma can make adolescent patients feel different from their peers, “and there is nothing worse to an adolescent than feeling different,” according to Alysa Brimer, a medical student at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
In addition to the negative social consequences of asthma—including lack of participation in school-based clubs, athletics, and social events—this negative self-perception may decrease patients' compliance with their medication regimens.
Creating social clubs and group athletic activities exclusively for asthmatic youths may go a long way toward mitigating patients' damaged self-esteem and increasing the likelihood of treatment compliance, Ms. Brimer said in a presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
Ms. Brimer and colleagues at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, investigated the factors that make asthmatic youths feel different from their healthy friends, and hypothesized that groups made up of asthmatic peers might improve their self-perception.
The investigators reviewed data from an ongoing survey of children with asthma who were 8-18 years old.
The anonymous questionnaire, which was offered to patients seen in the primary care and adolescent clinics at the hospital, included multiple-choice and open-ended questions designed to explore the youths' feelings about their disease and its effect on their lives.
One-third of the respondents had negative feelings about their asthma, and nearly 40% reported that their diagnosis made them feel different from their healthy peers.
“Outward reminders of their asthma made the kids particularly self-conscious,” Ms. Brimer stated. “Many of them—more than one third—said they felt uncomfortable using an inhaler in front of their friends.”
Although nearly 94% of the youth said they enjoyed participating in group activities, especially recreational sports, 45% said they felt restricted or excluded from school activities because of their asthma. “This tells us that maybe we should be looking for ways to incorporate the social preference for team or group activities into an intervention, such as an asthma club,” said Ms. Brimer. “The desire to belong to a group is a powerful motivator, especially among adolescents. There may be ways to use that desire to help asthmatic youth adjust to the disease and its treatment regimen.”