Objective: Difficulties in using inhaler devices is well known amongst the adult population, however, little is known about how parents administer inhaler devices to young children and the accompanying difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying concepts and practical issues that parents encountered in administering asthma inhaler to young children.Methods: This is a qualitative study using applied thematic analysis on parent written discourses on asynchronous online discussion forums and blogs in the topic of administration and use of asthma inhaler devices to their young children.Results: The essence "at a loss of what to do" summarizes the experiences of parents administering inhaler devices to their young children. Findings describe the problem, the situation, the emotions, the confusion and the assurance that parents faced in the administration of the inhaler. Parents struggled with child's resistance and its accompanying conflict, with both parents and children experienced distress over the administration. Results highlight the coping strategies when parents chose to use force or not to use force in the administration, their endeavour to determine the details and administration procedure, as well as the assurance they gave themselves and one another after administration. Conclusion:The results affirmed parents' lack of training and understanding of administering inhaler devices to young children and highlighted the needs for healthcare professionals to enhance their partnership and clinical care for parents of young children with respiratory issues.
Background Adults often have difficulty instilling eye drops in their own eyes, but little has been documented about the difficulties experienced by parents when administering eye drops to their young children, where the challenges of instillation are accentuated by their inability to cooperate. This qualitative study explores parents’ experiences of administering eye drops to their children as described in online forum discussions and blog posts. Methods This was an exploratory study using qualitative methods. We thematically analysed the written exchanges between parents participating in online forum discussions and blog posts about the administration of eye drops to their young children. Results We found 64 forum discussion threads and 4 blog posts, representing 464 unique contributors expressing their experiences of eye drop administration to young children. Three major themes were identified – administration challenges, administration methods and role of health care professionals. Besides describing their children’s distress, parents discussed their own discomfort and anxiety when administering eye drops. Parents used a variety of techniques to facilitate adherence with medication, including restraining the child, role-play, reassurance, distraction, or reward. The ideas exchanged about eye drop administration occasionally included reiteration of professional advice, but were dominated by parents’ own ideas/suggestions; interestingly health care professionals were considered diagnosticians and prescribers, rather than sources of practical advice on administration. Conclusions Parents struggling to deliver eye drops to their young children may seek advice on how to administer treatment from parental on-line discussion forums. The distress experienced by the young child and their parents is a powerful reminder to clinicians that procedures common and routine in health care may be challenging to parents. The advice given to parents needs to go beyond the instillation of the eye drops, and include advice on child restraint, distraction techniques and allaying distress. Forewarned of the potential difficulties and provided with coping strategies parents can employ when the child resists, could alleviate their own and their child’s distress.
BackgroundAsthma is a frequent chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, and the assessment of health-related quality of life (HrQoL) is important in both research and routine care. Various asthma-specific measures of HrQoL exist but there is uncertainty which measures are best suited for use in research and routine care. Therefore, the aim of the proposed research is a comprehensive systematic assessment of the measurement properties of the existing measures that were developed to measure asthma-specific quality of life.Methods/designThis study is a systematic review of the measurement properties of asthma-specific measures of health-related quality of life. PubMed and Embase will be searched using a selection of relevant search terms. Eligible studies will be primary empirical studies evaluating, describing or comparing measurement properties of asthma-specific HRQL tools. Eligibility assessment and data abstraction will be performed independently by two reviewers. Evidence tables will be generated for study characteristics, instrument characteristics, measurement properties and interpretability. The quality of the measurement properties will be assessed using predefined criteria. Methodological quality of studies will be assessed using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist. A best evidence synthesis will be undertaken if more than one study have investigated a particular measurement property.DiscussionThe proposed systematic review will produce a comprehensive assessment of measurement properties of existing measures of asthma-specific health-related quality of life. We also aim to derive recommendations in order to help researchers and practitioners alike in the choice of instrument.Trial registrationPROSPERO registration number: CRD42014010491.
Background: Adults often have difficulty instilling eye drops in their own eyes, but little is known about the difficulties experienced by parents when administering eye drops to their young children.The challenges of administering eye drops to children are accentuated by their poor cooperation, but little has been documented about the difficulties experienced by parents when administering eye drops to their young children. This qualitative study explores parents' experiences of administering eye drops to their children in online forum discussions and blog posts. Methods: The written exchanges between parents participating in online forum discussions and blog posts relating to the administration of eye drops to young children were thematically analysed. Results: We found 64 forum discussion threads and 4 blog posts, representing 464 unique contributors expressing their experiences of eye drop administration to young children. Three major themes were identifiedadministration difficulties, administration techniques and role of health care professionals. Besides describing their children's distress, parents discussed their own discomfort as the administrator of eye drops; alluding to feeling 'horrible' and 'cruel'. Parents used a variety of techniques to facilitate adherence with medication, including restraining the child, role-play, reassurance, distraction or reward. The recommended strategies for eye drop administration occasionally included reiteration of professional advice, but were dominated by parents' own ideas/suggestions; interestingly health care professionals were considered diagnosticians and prescribers, but not sources of practical advice on administration. Conclusion: Parental narratives shared on the internet have highlighted significant young child and parental distress associated with eye drop administration. The analysis of digital social networks has the potential to identify patient problems that health professionals may not have previously recognised nor appreciated the magnitude. The current study reveals that parents' experiences dominated the online discourse with their own advice and suggestions regarding administrating eye drops to young children but little did they recall on the advice from healthcare professionals, highlighting the need for clinicians in improving their explanations to parents about eye drop administration.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.