A child's self-report when it comes to rating the effectiveness of asthma medications can be reliable, a new study is reporting.
According to the research, children were more accurate than their caregivers at determining whether or not an asthma treatment was working. For this study, the team compared the efficacy of an intranasal allergy spray, MP-AzeFlu (Dymista), to a placebo spray. MP-AzeFlu is made from a combination of an antihistamine, azelastine and steroid, fluticasone, that work together to reduce inflammation and prevent symptoms such as sneezing and watery eyes.
As a part of the study, the researchers also examined a caregiver's ability to gauge how the children were responding to either treatment.
The researchers recruited 304 children between the ages of 6 and 11 to participate in the 14-day long study. The children had a history of moderate to severe seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR), which is also known as hay fever.
The effectiveness of the nasal spray was measured using three scoring systems: the reflective total nasal symptom score, the reflective total ocular symptom score and the efficacy scores that were reported by the children and their caregivers. The researchers also used the total scores from the Pediatric Rhinitis Quality of Life Questionnaire when comparing the results from both groups.
The team found that MP-AzeFlu helped alleviate the symptoms of SAR more effectively than the placebo spray did. The children from the MP-AzeFlu group also self-reported higher levels of relief after using the spray. Their caregivers, however, could not tell the difference between how MP-AzeFlu and the placebo affected the children's symptoms.
"Symptom severity assessment by caregivers and children cannot be assumed to be the same. In fact, caregivers are less sensitive than children in assessing response to treatment, at least with available tools," the study's lead author, Dr. William Berger, said in a press release. "In this regard children, and not caregivers, appear to know best!"
The researchers noted that doctors might be better off asking children how they feel after taking asthma medications instead of relying on caregivers. The team reasoned that since the tools that are available now are not helping caregivers when it comes to assessing a child's response to an asthma treatment, health experts should consider modifying them.
The study's findings were published in the journal, Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.
