A Community-Guided Approach to Bronchiolitis: A Needs Assessment and Illness Perception Study

Abstract

The factors influencing caregivers’ understanding of pediatric respiratory diseases, such as bronchiolitis, can guide patient care and the acceptability of treatment methods within the healthcare system. This study aims to identify illness perceptions and perform a needs assessment among caregivers of children diagnosed with respiratory diseases. This is a prospective, cross-sectional, questionnaire-driven study of a representative sample of caregivers whose children had an acute respiratory illness. The telephone-administered questionnaire was comprised of (1) demographic items; (2) illness perception questionnaire-revised (IPQ-R); and (3) items about personal barriers, the latter 2 of which employed a 5-point Likert response. Cronbach's alpha ( α) was used to measure the internal consistency reliability for each item within the IPQ-R. The Pearson 2-tailed correlation coefficient was used to correlate questionnaire items. We included 75 caregivers whose children have been diagnosed with bronchiolitis (51%), reactive airway disease (RAD) (35%), asthma (33%), and wheezing (44%). We found no significance between the child's diagnosis and the site of recruitment. The most important components of the illness perception were illness coherence ( α=0.849), psychological attributions ( α=0.903), and barriers to diagnosis ( α=0.633). Understanding caregivers’ perceptions of respiratory diseases will lead to better treatment acceptance. We must clarify the terms used to define bronchiolitis from viral-induced wheezing, RAD, and the first asthma episode in older infants. Identifying caregivers’ gaps in knowledge will help establish a cohesive approach to personalized treatment of respiratory diseases in children and their diagnosis.