Parental Risk Perception: Influence of Disease Perceived Controllability, Experience and Severity

Optimistic health bias is widespread in adults, impacting responsiveness to information regarding health risks. Comparatively little is known about parents perception of their childs likelihood of developing disease, despite the frequency with which parents make decisions about their childs health. We hypothesized that parental optimism about their childs likelihood of developing disease would be greater for diseases perceived as more controllable and those with which parents do not have experience. Parents of children <18 years complete an online survey. Primary outcome was participants perceived comparative likelihood of their child developing appendicitis, dental caries, head lice, leukemia, food allergies, pneumonia, asthma and obesity. Optimism was defined as the belief that ones child was less likely than average to develop a given disease. Logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between parental optimism and four independent variables: perceived disease controllability; knowing someone with the disease; childs history of the disease; perceived disease severity. Among 374 participants, the proportion of optimistic parents ranged from 35.3% (appendicitis) to 65.0% (obesity). Perceived controllability increased the odds of parental optimism (adjusted odds ratio [ aOR] range: 1.57 for asthma to 4.48 for head lice). Odds of optimism were lower if participants knew somebody with the disease (aOR range: 0.42 for head lice to 0.81 for leukemia) or if the child had a history of the disease (aOR range: 0.27 for dental caries to 0.47 for head lice). These findings are important to enhance parental counseling effectiveness regarding child health behaviors.