TOPLINE:
Children with asthma exposed to worsening psychosocial environmental factors during childhood were more likely to have more severe asthma symptoms than those without such exposures.
METHODOLOGY:
The researchers reviewed data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a nationally representative cohort that also collects data on the health, psychosocial, and environmental status of parents, and used three multivariate models to assess the impact of psychosocial environmental factors on asthma symptoms at ages 1 year, 4-5 years, and 14-15 years.
The study population included 3917 children aged 0-15 years who were sorted into three asthma symptom trajectory groups (low/no asthma, transient high asthma, and persistent high asthma); asthma symptoms were defined as a history of chest wheezing lasting at least a week within the past 12 months.
The researchers identified several psychosocial environmental factors as exposure variables on the basis of literature reviews; these factors were maternal depression, parents' financial hardship, parental availability, and parental stressful life events.
TAKEAWAY:
The mean scores of psychosocial factors for the overall study population remained stable over time, but groups of children exposed to bad trajectories of psychosocial factors were significantly more likely to have transient high and persistent high asthma symptoms.
In the first year of life, only parents' stressful life events were significantly associated with the persistent high asthma symptom trajectory group in an adjusted analysis.
