Urban kids use alternative treatment to manage asthma

To mitigate asthma symptoms, urban adolescents might want to try alternative medicine, like prayer or relaxation, to manage their symptoms. A new study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that these techniques improve quality of life for asthma sufferers.

The study was meant to encourage doctors to explore alternative ways of helping pediatric patients self-manage illness. It was a two pronged study: one, to uncover the alternative treatments kids use, and two, to look at spiritual struggles in adolescents and how that contributed to state of health.

“Few studies examine the role of spiritual struggles in children, and none have examined the relationship between spiritual struggles, secular coping and their outcomes; we wanted to see if spiritual struggles contribute uniquely to a patient’s quality of life, beyond demographic variables,” said Sian Cotton, PhD, assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine.

Researchers found that male African-Americans who reported spiritual struggles used more negative coping skills and had a lower quality of life. Non African-Americans also had increased anxiety and depressive symptoms. This suggests that “spiritual coping is an important element to consider when care for adolescents with asthma,” said Cotton.

For integrated or alternative treatments, they asked if kids used prayer, guided imagery, relaxation, meditation, yoga, massage, herbs, vitamins and rubs as well as diet to help cope. “Seventy-one percent of participants reported using complementary or alternative medicine, most commonly relaxation, at 64%, and prayer, at 61%, for symptom management in the last month,” Cotton reported. “Adolescents would most often consider using relaxation and prayer in the future for symptom management.”

This information should help doctors help their patients help themselves. If symptoms can be self managed, health conditions should improve as well as confidence over one’s own ability to heal. Additionally, Cotton pointed out that the use of spirituality, especially among faithful urban kids, should not be overlooked as a tool.

Source: UC, ScienceDaily