Views of parents having children diagnosed with asthma in Mayotte

Introduction. Like most chronic diseases, asthma is daily managed by the patient himself and episodically controlled by the doctor. This must strive to integrate the patients psychological experience in the management of the disease. Objectives. To describe parents' views about their children with asthma in Mayotte. Method. Qualitative study using grounded theory, conducted with semi structured interviews in Mayotte. Parents of asthmatic children with asthma episodes greater than or equal to 2 were included. The interviews were analysed by two researchers independently to allow triangulation of the data. Results. Sufficiency of the data was obtained on a sample of 13 patients. Parents lived experiences were dominated by feelings of fear. Most of the parent's views of asthma came from personal experiences. Few parents had medical notions about the disease. Traditional treatments have an essential place in the therapeutic options. Conclusion. The heterogeneous views of the asthmatic children's parents were sometimes far from the metropolitans. Appropriation of these representations by the caregivers in Mayotte seemed to be essential to improve health care.