Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Christina Duncan

Committee Member

Amy Gentzler

Committee Member

Kathleen Morrison

Abstract

Background: Given the complex regimen associated with epilepsy, ensuring that adolescents and young adults (AYAs) adhere to their medications, and are ready to transition from pediatric to adult care, is crucial to optimizing their health outcomes. Several social and ecological factors such as self-efficacy and parental miscarried helping can strengthen or weaken an adolescent’s medication adherence and readiness to shift from pediatric to adult care. Intending to contribute to informing and improving clinical care, this study sought to understand the relationships between self-efficacy, parental miscarried helping, medication adherence, and transition readiness. Methods: Using a cross-sectional observational design, 46 AYAs with epilepsy and their caregivers completed measures of self-efficacy (Epilepsy Self-Efficacy Scale- ESES), parental miscarried helping (Helping for Health Inventory- HHI), medication adherence (parent and adolescent versions of the Pediatric Epilepsy Medication Self-Management Questionnaire- PEMSQ/AEMSQ), and transition readiness (Epilepsy Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire- EpiTRAQ). Young adults and caregivers of teens also completed a Family Information Form to assess for demographics (e.g., race, sex, income) while research staff performed a medical chart review to gather information on various medical variables (e.g., seizure type, three-month seizure history). PROCESS Macro was then used to (a) determine the association between parental miscarried helping and medication adherence/transition readiness as mediated by self-efficacy; and (b) investigate the relation between self-efficacy and medication adherence/transition readiness as moderated by parental miscarried helping. Results: Mediation analyses between parental miscarried helping, self-efficacy, and medication adherence/transition readiness were not significant. Moderation analyses between self-efficacy, medication adherence/transition readiness, and parental miscarried helping were also not significant. However, parental miscarried helping remained a predictor of medication adherence even with self-efficacy included in the model (B = -0.1215, t (32) = -2.7194, p = 0.0105). Self-efficacy and patient age were significant predictors of transition readiness, while self-efficacy and seizure severity were significant predictors of medication adherence. Discussion: While the mediation and moderation analyses did not yield statistically significant results, as hypothesized, the novel finding of an association between parental miscarried helping and medication adherence fills a gap in the literature and serves as a foundation for future studies. It is also imperative to interpret the findings of this study cautiously, recognizing the limitations posed by the study's underpowered nature, thereby emphasizing the need for further research with a larger sample size to enhance the robustness of conclusions drawn from this investigation.

Download

Share

COinS