Despite the intentions to improve the quality of life and create the best control and treatment approaches, asthma remains a significant problem in the United States. Statistical data from various credible sources show that about 10% of American children (7 million) have asthma as a diagnosed chronic disease (Johnson et al., 2017; Papadopoulos et al., 2019). In addition, children may suffer from asthma-related problems like fatigue, uncontrolled blood pressure, and repeated visits to hospitals. Pediatricians, therapists, and nurses continue working to understand how to reduce readmission rates among asthma patients and develop new follow-up programs to involve children and their families.
Problem
There are many problems around the topic of pediatric asthma in the modern world of health care and nursing. Papadopoulos et al. (2019) underlined the importance of an increased focus on childhood asthma in terms of its definition (distinguishable from adult asthma), guidelines for a specific treatment, and follow-up management. The problem is that even the most professional medical workers cannot control the burden of asthma, and asthma-related revisits are observed in approximately 40% of children within the next 12 months (Johnson et al., 2017). As a rule, much attention is paid to the way of how children must be diagnosed and treated. The role of nurses and their possible contributions to the problem solution is still unclear.
Significance of the Problem
The significance of the problem lies in the necessity to improve the existing statistics and provide children and their families with a possibility to control asthma and its related issues. Children’s health is the promotion of well-being in people from conception through their adolescence. It is a responsibility not only for a pediatrician but for nurses, parents, and other caregivers. Children are vulnerable to a number of environmental factors, and they can hardly control or understand their health problems. Asthma is not only a serious health or family burden but a social and economic concern that results in school absence, impaired quality of life, and increased costs on medication (Papadopoulos et al., 2019). Therefore, the reduction of readmissions among asthmatic children cannot be ignored, and new solutions have to be developed.
Purpose of the Research
The primary purpose of this research is to reduce readmissions in pediatric patients who have already been hospitalized and diagnosed with asthma. It is expected to underline the worth of nurse participation in follow-up care. The goal is to understand in nurse phone calls may contribute to improved parental awareness of asthma and predict their children’s revisits to hospital with the same problem. Postdischarge phone calls have already been investigated as a part of a patient- and family-centered care approach for children with nephrosis, acute renal failure, or urinary tract infection (Flippo, NeSmith, Stark, Joshua, & Hoehn, 2015). Now, the potential worth of nurse phone calls and communication with parents will be discussed directly in regard to pediatric patients with asthma.
Research Questions
The problem of readmissions among asthmatic children covers many spheres, including the recognition of the disease, treatment effectiveness, and follow-up care. To clarify if phone calls organized by nurses can be effective in prevention revisits, several research questions should be answered:
- Are nurse phone calls to families with asthmatic children would reduce the number of readmissions with the next year?
- Will nurse-parent communication increase the awareness of asthma-related complications in families?
- Would one call per week be effective in reducing a child’s revisits to a hospital? Or is it necessary to change (increase/diminish) this frequency?
Master’s Essentials
The role of nurses in the research under consideration is integral, which underlines the importance of nurse knowledge in this field. In nursing education, there are nine essentials according to which nurses must develop their skills (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2011). Several conditions can be aligned with the topic of this research project. Essential III about quality improvement and safety helps recognize the responsibilities of nurses in their abilities to meet the standards of care and demonstrate a high performance (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2011). Essential V covers the role of informatics and healthcare technologies in nursing care. Nurses must learn how to choose the most effective communication technologies and support patients and their families. Finally, Essential VIII tells about clinical prevention for improving health (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2011). A phone call intervention as a service to reduce readmissions in asthmatic children is an excellent example of how population health is managed and improved.
Conclusion
The idea to help children and their families in predicting asthma-related readmissions turns out to be a serious topic for research. Phone calls have already been proved as an effective communication tool between nurses and parents for disease control. This project is characterized by narrowed sample (pediatric patients with asthma), an apparent intervention (phone calls), and particular participants (doers) of the intervention (nurses and parents, or other caregivers). Asthma continues changing the quality of a child’s life, and the role of a researcher is to investigate as many aspects of the problem as possible and predict the growth of readmission rates in hospitals.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2011).The essentials of master’s education in nursing. Web.
Flippo, R., NeSmith, E., Stark, N., Joshua, T., & Hoehn, M. (2015). Reduction of 30-day preventable pediatric readmission rates with postdischarge phone calls utilizing a patient-and family-centered care approach. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 29(6), 492-500.
Johnson, L. H., Beck, A. F., Kahn, R. S., Huang, B., Ryan, P. H., Olano, K. K., & Auger, K. A. (2017). Characteristics of pediatric emergency revisit after an asthma-related hospitalization. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 70(3), 277-287.
Papadopoulos, N. G., Čustović, A., Cabana, M. D., Dell, S. D., Deschildre, A., Hedlin, G.,… Phipatanakul, W. (2019). Pediatric asthma: An unmet need for more effective, focused treatments. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, 30(1), 7-16.