A new report has revealed that parents and carers are twice as likely to discuss alternative medicine and complementary therapy treatment options for their children’s asthma than conventional asthma drugs.

The report was published after a study that looked at over 15,000 blogs, forums and social network sites (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, BeBo) between October 2007 and April 2008 in which parents and carers discussed asthma treatment for children.

In the report by Cymfony, a TNS Media Intelligence company, the authors stated that while pharmaceutical asthma drugs were an important part of treating children with asthma, parents see them only as part of the solution. To manage the condition parents seek information on alternative and complementary therapies to aid the medication.

The study also indicated that parents are negative about the majority of asthma drug classes apart from corticosteroids.

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