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

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 beta = 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 beta = 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.