Home‐Based Asthma Self‐Management Education for Inner City Children

Abstract

Optimal home self-management in young children with asthma includes accurate symptom identification followed by timely and appropriate treatment. The objective of this study was to evaluate a home-based asthma educational intervention targeting symptom identification for parents of children with asthma. Two hundred twenty-one children with asthma were enrolled into an ongoing home-based clinical trial and randomized into either a standard asthma education (SAE) or a symptom/nebulizer education intervention (SNEI). Data included home visit records and parent's self-report on questionnaires. Symptom identification and self-management skills significantly improved from preintervention to postintervention for parents in both groups with the exception of checking medications for expiration dates and the frequency of cleaning nebulizer device and equipment. However, significantly more parents of children in the SNEI group reported treating cough symptoms as compared with the SAE group (p = 0.05). Of concern is that only 38% of all parents reported having an asthma action plan in the home. A targeted home-based asthma education intervention can be effective for improving symptom identification and appropriate use of medications in children with asthma. Home asthma educational programs should address accurate symptom identification and a demonstration of asthma medication delivery devices.

Achieving and maintaining asthma control in inner-city children

“…[28][29][30][31] It is unclear why African American patients tend to have more difficult to control asthma, as observed in our study and by other investigators. 8,31 Further investigation is required to identify specifically which factors including environmental, socioeconomic, psychosocial, behavioral, or genetic explain this phenomenon.…”

The Nature of Family Engagement in Interventions for Children With Chronic Conditions

“…For example, in a sample of parents of children with asthma, Butz and colleagues (2005b) sought to improve the parents’ ability to identify symptoms and initiate appropriate nebulizer use in order to decrease` child morbidity. Slifer and colleagues (2009) tested the efficacy of a distraction intervention administered by parents during injection procedures that was hypothesized to decrease child distress.…”

Family and Home Asthma Services across the Controlling Asthma in American Cities Project

“…[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Each CAAC FHAS intervention addressed multiple determinants of health by treating the whole person, instead of focusing only on providing appropriate medical therapy for the disease. All CAAC FHAS programs provided multicomponent, multitrigger environmental interventions, and additional nonenvironmental components such as asthma self-management, social services, or coordinated care.…”