Researchers Found a Direct Connection Between the Caregiver's Depression and the Worsening of a Child's Asthma

Depression is a growing problem people are facing these days. It only does not affect the person suffering from it, it also affects those around them. A new study was started with the aim of determining whether treating a caregiver or parent with depression can correct a child's asthma.

The study shows that children with asthma are at a higher risk for depression. It also revealed that there is a direct connection between a parent or a caregiver's depression and the child's asthma. Now, researchers at a University at Buffalo and the University of Texas in Dallas are trying to find further connection.

According to sciencedaily.com, the researchers recruited 200 families through Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo (WCHOB) and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for the study. The study also included checking caregivers of children with asthma for depression and offering help for those found to be depressed. It was based on a past study that believes a connection between caregiver depression and the aggravating case of asthma in children.

Bruce Miller, MD and Beatrice Wood, PhD, lead investigators of the grant, who are also professors of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, co-founders and directors of the Center for Child and Family Asthma Studies at WCHOB explained that they are guessing that there will be an improvement in the caregiver's depression that will somehow lead to the improvement of the child's asthma.

"We have continuously found associations between emotional stress and worsening asthma, and that family relational stress plays a key role," said Wood. Both professors have been working together on factors that can affect asthma in children for more than 20 years.

There have also been studies showing that a child's asthma worsens if the family is stressed. Wood also said that the study specifically showed the negative effect of the family's emotion in the worsening of the child's asthma, news-medical.net reports.