Background: Medication adherence is defined as the degree to which the medications taken reflect the prescribed intention and is influenced by various factors. Different factors, such as parental trauma or parenting style, may influence their child or children’s medical treatment adherence. Authoritative, or “flexible,” parenting is known to develop the most nurturing relationship between parent and child or children. The relationship between parental factors, such as parenting style and trauma level, and their influence on child medication adherence is being explored. Objective: This study examines the relationship between parental trauma, parenting style, and their child or children’s adherence to medical recommendations. Methods: Participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform. Participants were aged 18 years or older, a caregiver for at least 1 child younger than the age of 18 years, and had at least 1 child who was prescribed medication within the past 3 months. Parental trauma level was measured via the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire, and parenting style was measured via the Parental Authority Questionnaire–Revised. Descriptive statistics, including chi-square tests, 2-tailed tests, and adjusted logistic regressions, were used to determine the association between parental trauma, parenting style, and their child or children’s medical adherence. Results: A total of 720 participant responses were analyzed. Children who were medically adherent were younger (=.02). Caregivers’ mean age was 36.8 (SD 7.97) years, and 35.4% (n=255) identified as male. An increase in caregivers’ adverse childhood experiences score was marginally associated with an increased risk of medication nonadherence among their children (adjusted odds ratio 0.94; =.07). Conclusions: Similar to other studies, this study showed that parents of children who adhere to medical treatment practice an authoritative parenting style. Uniquely, it also showed that an increased adverse childhood experiences score was only marginally associated with an increased risk of medical nonadherence.
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Radically different