Knowledge of Inhaled Therapy and Responsibility for Asthma Management Among Young Teens With Uncontrolled Persistent Asthma

OBJECTIVES: To compare the abilities of teens with uncontrolled persistent asthma and their caregivers to identify inhaled medications and state correct indications for use; examine medication responsibility within dyads; and determine whether responsibility is associated with knowledge about inhaled therapies. DESIGN/METHODS: In the baseline survey for the School-Based Asthma Care for Teens (SB-ACT) trial, we separately asked caregivers and teens to: 1) identify the teen’s inhaled asthma therapies by name and from a picture chart (complete matches considered “concordant”); 2) describe indications of use for each medication; 3) describe the allocation of responsibility for medication use within dyads. We limited analyses to dyads in which either member reported at least one rescue and one inhaled controller medication; we used McNemar and Pearson chi-square tests. RESULTS: 136 dyads were analyzed. More caregivers than teens concordantly identified medications (63% vs 31%, p