An investigation into the impact of childhood asthma and mental health condition multimorbidity

Background: Asthma is a prevalent chronic disease that is commonly multimorbid with neurodevelopment disorders (NDMs) including ADHD, anxiety, and depression. However, the impact of asthma-NMD multimorbidity is not well understood.

Methods: This national, longitudinal study used survey data from youth collected in 2019 and 2023. Multiple regression analysis with condition status (no asthma or NMD, asthma only, NMD only, and multimorbidity) as the independent variable was run to investigate changes in perception of health and new onset of functional difficulties.

Results: Results suggested a positive association between asthma status and the person-most-knowledgeable (PMK’s) perception of the child’s health (β=0.27) but increased risk of difficulty walking 500m (OR=2.14, 95%CI=1.12, 4.07). NMD status was positively associated (β=0.363) with PMK perception of child’s mental health but with an increased risk of difficulty making friends (OR=3.31, 95%CI=1.90, 5.74), difficulties due to anxiety (OR=1.62, 95%CI=1.00, 2.62), and difficulty walking 500m (OR=2.12, 95%CI=1.22,3.67). Asthma-NMD multimorbidity was negatively associated with school attendance (β=-0.527) and showed an increased risk of difficulty walking 100m (OR=5.79, 95%CI=1.32, 26.2) and 500m (OR=9.45, 95%CI=3.60,24.8).

Conclusions: These results suggest that NMD and multimorbidity are more often associated with functional difficulty than asthma alone but there are some contradictory results that warrant further research.