Clinical determinants for State-Trait Anxiety Inventory of the parents of children with respiratory problems

Wicharn Boonjindasup; Julie M Marchant; Margaret S McElrea; Stephanie T Yerkovich; Peter A Newcombe; Anne B Chang

doi:10.1002/ppul.26702

Clinical determinants for State-Trait Anxiety Inventory of the parents of children with respiratory problems

Pediatr Pulmonol. 2024 Jan;59(1):31-40. doi: 10.1002/ppul.26702. Epub 2023 Sep 26.

Authors

Wicharn Boonjindasup^{1

2

3}, Julie M Marchant^{2

4}, Margaret S McElrea^{2

4}, Stephanie T Yerkovich^{1

2}, Peter A Newcombe⁵, Anne B Chang^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Child Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Paediatric Bronchiectasis (AusBREATHE), Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
² Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation, Centre for Healthcare Transformation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
³ Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
⁴ Department of Respiratory & Sleep Medicine, Queensland Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
⁵ School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Abstract

Backgrounds: Understanding factors associated with anxiety of parents/carers of children with respiratory problems is clinically important yet there is relative paucity of data. In 106 children seen in the respiratory clinic of a pediatric hospital, we evaluated (a) the determinants for parental anxiety and (b) whether the anxiety scores correlate with quality-of-life (QoL) scores in the subset with chronic cough.

Methods: We opportunistically re-analyzed data of our main study that examined the benefits of using spirometry for pediatric respiratory consultation where parents completed an anxiety questionnaire (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, STAI) pre- and postconsultation. A subset (children with chronic cough) also completed the parent-proxy quality-of-life (PC-QoL) tool. We computed the association between clinical characteristics and anxiety scores using multivariable regression and between the two patient-reported outcome measures using Spearman's correlation.

Results: The majority of parents/carers were women (n = 89, 84%). Most children (mean age = 10.9 years, SD = 3.7 years) were previously seen at the clinic (n = 67, 63.2%). In multivariate regression, parental anxiety score was significantly associated with reported presence of cough [coefficient β = 17.31 (95% confidence interval 9.62, 25.1)] and lower forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV₁ )/forced vital capacity (FVC) [-3.88 (-7.05, -0.71)] at preconsultation, but associated with cough only [coefficient β = 12.04 (5.24, 18.84)] at postconsultation, all p < .05. STAI strongly correlated with PC-QoL scores at pre- but only modestly at postconsultation (r_s = -.63 and -.39, respectively, p < .05).

Conclusion: Parental anxiety levels of children attending respiratory clinics are influenced by the presence of cough and low FEV₁ /FVC of their child and are associated with poorer QoL. These highlight the need for on-going research to reduce parental anxiety focusing on cough and lung function indices.

Keywords: anxiety; burden; child; cough; lung; quality-of-life; respiratory; spirometry.

MeSH terms

Anxiety / diagnosis
Child
Cough*
Female
Humans
Male
Parents
Quality of Life*
Spirometry

Abstract

MeSH terms

Grants and funding