Association Between Parental Asthma Knowledge and Perceptions of Asthma Control in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Malaysian Tertiary Hospital

Introduction: Parental knowledge and perceptions about asthma are core factors influencing the better management and control of their children's asthma, as parents are the primary caretakers.The association between these factors and childhood asthma control is not well characterised in Malaysia.Objective: This study aimed to investigate the association between asthma knowledge and perceptions among parents of asthmatic children and their children's asthma control level.Method: A cross-sectional study with a sample size of 131 participants was conducted in the paediatric medical outpatient clinic of Sarawak General Hospital from January to March 2019.Faceto-face interviews were conducted with parents of asthmatic children using a validated questionnaire to determine socio-demographic characteristics of both parents and children, as well as parental asthma knowledge and perceptions.The internal consistency (Cronbach's ) of the knowledge and perception constructs were 0.631 and 0.647, respectively.Children's asthma control levels were assessed using two rating systems: the C-ACT score and the GINA-defined asthma control questionnaire.Data were analysed using non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests) and Spearman's correlation.Results: Parents averaged an asthma knowledge score of 8.8 out of 15, with those aged between 41-50 years old (p=0.006),those with tertiary education (p=0.001), and families with an income of RM5000 (p<0.001)achieving significantly higher scores.The knowledge score was positively correlated with parental perceptions regarding the timeline of childhood asthma (r=0.184,p=0.035), but did not significantly correlate with their children's asthma control level (r=0.024,p=0.783).C-ACT scores were significantly higher among parents living in urban areas (p=0.029) and those who were well educated (p=0.001),but negatively correlated with parental perceptions regarding the timeline of childhood asthma (r=-0.285,p=0.001).Conclusion: Despite a positive correlation between asthma knowledge scores and the education level of parents, their asthma knowledge and perceptions did not significantly influence the control of their children's asthma.Other factors should be investigated.