Breaking the Access Barrier

Objective To evaluate an asthma education program for children with asthma that is delivered in their school by certified asthma educators from a local hospital-based asthma center. Study design Randomized controlled trial. Setting Twenty-six elementary schools located in a suburb of Toronto. Participants A total of 256 children in grades 2 to 5 with asthma and their parents were randomized to control and experimental groups. Intervention Children in the experimental group received the "Roaring Adventures of Puff" asthma education program over the course of six weekly 1-h sessions. Those in the control group continued receiving usual care. Measurements and results Data collection involved measuring asthma quality of life, self-efficacy for managing asthma, school absenteeism, days of interrupted activity, health services use, and parental loss of time from work. Quality of life and self-efficacy data were collected from the children at baseline and 2 months. Telephone parental interviews conducted over 1 year were used to collect data on the remaining variables. Unpaired t test, analysis of variance, and χ2 test were used to determine whether differences existed between the groups. The results are reported as the mean ± SD. The experimental group demonstrated higher scores than the control group for self-efficacy (3.6 ± 0.7 vs 3.8 ± 0.9, respectively; p 0.05), and days of interrupted activity (9.1 ± 10.5 vs 6.2 ± 7.3 days per year; p Conclusion Providing an asthma education program to children in their school can significantly improve quality of life and reduce the burden of childhood asthma.