Smoking patterns among adolescents with asthma attending upper secondary schools: a community-based study

Smoking among upper secondary pupils with asthma: reasons for their smoking behavior: a population-based study

We compared why adolescent pupils with and without asthma started smoking and currently smoke. Girls with asthma started smoking less often because of friends smoking, and asthmatics started more often because of pressure, especially asthmatic boys. Fewer asthmatics smoked currently for social reasons and more to stay slim, mainly asthmatic boys.

Agreement between teenager and caregiver responses to questions about teenager's asthma

It is unknown if teenagers and caregivers give similar responses when interviewed about the teen's asthma. We analyzed data for 63 urban African-American teen-caregiver pairs. Caregivers underestimated teen smoking by 30%, gave lower estimates for teen exposure to passive smoke, and disagreed with teens on controller medication usage. Teen-caregiver responses were not significantly different for estimates of symptom-days, activity limitations, or nights awakened; nor were they significantly different for report of emergency department visits or hospitalizations. Agreement was weak for perceived asthma control and severity. Teen-caregiver agreement on asthma depends on the type of information being sought.

Risk taking, depression, adherence, and symptom control in adolescents and young adults with asthma

Risk behaviors, including tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, are common in adolescents and young adults. Those who engage in one risk behavior are likely to engage in additional health risk behaviors, and as the number of risk behaviors increase, depression comorbidity emerges. For young people with chronic illness, risk behavior and depression are also common. There is some evidence that both depression and risk behavior are associated with nonadherence to medications, poor treatment outcomes, and death. The relationship between depression and asthma may involve more than one causal pathway and includes the possibility that depression can lead to a sense of hopelessness that erodes adherence and other health-promoting behavior, or that depression impacts asthma directly by altering the immune system. An assessment of the interplay between risk behavior, depression, adherence, and asthma can add important new information to our understanding about how to identify and treat those at greatest risk for poorly controlled disease and asthma-related death. New behavioral studies must overcome the shortcomings frequently seen in previous research and include well-designed and controlled investigations using valid behavioral measures of risk behavior, mood disorder, and adherence; recruitment that includes sufficient numbers of subjects and gives careful consideration of selection bias; and employment of multivariate data modeling to allow for simultaneous statistical examination of multiple relationships.