Self-regulating childhood asthma: A developmental model of family change

This article tests a model of self-regulatory development in which families ' cognitive beliefs and behavioral skills for managing asthma symptoms emer ge in four successive phases: asthma symptom avoidance, asthma acceptance, asthma compliance, and asthma self-regulation, Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the hypothesized multiphase model provided the best factoria l fit for phase items. Subsequent Guttman analyses of the families' phase s cores revealed a high degree of sequential ordering. Finally, trend analyse s of family phase differences revealed a significant negative linear relati on with measures of asthma severity and a significant positive linear relat ion with physician care and concern measures, asthma regulatory measures, a nd beliefs in Western biomedical practices. Despite receiving primary care for asthma at a major metropolitan university hospital, 83% of me sample we re classified as precompliant. The phase model of asthma self-regulatory de velopment offers a qualitative approach for investigating the psychological determinants of asthma self-regulatory behavior.