Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2006

Mentor: Dr. Rebecca Gruchalla
Department: Internal Medicine: Department of Allergy/Immunology
Room number: J4.126
Mail Code: 8859
Phone number: 214-648-3004
E-mail: Rebeccca.Gruchalla@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Caregiver Stress and Asthma Morbidity

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 022005-022

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects) Patient-based research

Brief Description of Project: The goal of the project is to assess the relationship between caregiver perceived stress and asthma morbidity in 100 pediatric patients with persistent asthma. Caregiver stress level is evaluated using the 10-item Juniper Perceived Stress Scale. Asthma morbidity is assessed using two instruments. The first is a questionnaire administered to caregivers about the physical symptoms of their child over the previous two weeks (nighttime wheezing, cough, activity limitations, etc). The second instrument is the 23 item Pediatric quality of life survey that is answered by the pediatric patients themselves. With this instrument, patients rate their asthma-related quality of life over the previous seven day period. Demographic and smoking information is also collected on each patient and caregiver.
Once all patients have been enrolled, subgroup analysis will be performed with the data set divided by age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, smoking exposure, and recent respiratory infection. Then the bivariate correlation between stress and asthma morbidity will be determined. If this correlation is found to be statistically significant, the correlation between caregiver stress and asthma morbidity will be recalculated to determine whether this correlation is robust to the inclusion of possible confounders such as socioeconomic status, race, type of insurance, and any other variables that are found to be significantly correlated with the morbidity measures during the bivariate analysis.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:
Cason Pierce, Student Summer Research Program 2005
Katrina Willie, Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow 2004-2005

Return to Medical Student Research Page