Introduction
- Patient education is critical;
- It helps to control patients’ health;
- Asthma depends on various environmental factors;
- African-American children are at a high risk of asthma;
- Patient education on asthma lacks proper research;
- Teaching sessions may be useful to address the identified health concern.
The Spirit of Inquiry Ignited
- Many African-American children have asthma (Todoric, Bangdiwala, Vadlamudi, Alarcon, & Hernandez, 2015);
- These children are at risk regardless of social status and family income;
- Nutritional patterns, environmental pollution, and exposure to different triggers can cause asthma;
- The problem is that African-American children are likely to have this disease twice more compared to other races (the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2014);
- It is urgent to address the problem;
- The provision of educational resources seems to a solution.
PICOT Question
- (P) – In African American children with asthma
- (I) – will the use of teaching sessions (30 minutes per week)
- (C) – compared with the traditional teaching tools for managing the problem
- (O) – have better effects on the management of the disease
- (T) – over a year?
- PICOT question coincides with the clinical question.
Search Strategy
- CINAHL;
- Cochrane Library National Guidelines Clearinghouse;
- PubMed;
- TRIP;
- Children teaching strategies;
- Hereditary and environmental predictors of asthma.
Critical Appraisal of the Evidence Performed
- Asthma in children is marked by social and personal challenges (Agusala, Vij, Agusala, Dasari, & Kola, 2018);
- In rural areas, asthma care is not fully available;
- Everhart, Greenlee, Winter, and Fiese (2018) discovered that asthma in children correlates with the quality of life;
- Ding, Wathen, Altaye, and Mersha (2018) determined a link between African ancestry and asthma;
- Emotionally sensitive information was important in asthma education (Archibald, Hartling, Ali, Caine, & Scott, 2018).
- The mentioned findings are essential for the project.
Evidence Integrated with Clinical Expertise and Patient Preferences
- Evidence found will be translated into 30-minute teaching sessions;
- Results will be compared with a traditional approach to treating asthma in children – medications;
- Lack of awareness of their own condition prevents children from proper treatment;
- It is better to combine medication therapy with patient education;
- Collaboration of children’s parents and their healthcare providers is required;
- A nurse should have knowledge of pharmacology, child psychology, and cultural competence to provide education.
The outcome of Practice Change Evaluated
- 20 children completed a series of 30-minute lessons;
- Improved self-efficacy was reported by their parents;
- Increased awareness of taking medication was noted;
- The short timeframe for the identified intervention was effective;
- Other pediatric patients with asthma may also receive educational sessions;
- Expectations regarding the overall benefit of education were proved.
Project Outcomes Disseminated
- The educational setting was used;
- Managing asthma implemented in this project was considered useful;
- It was recognized as relevant for using in children with other chronic conditions as well;
- Parents and caretakers also received the findings of the project;
- They were encouraged to share information with friends;
- African-American children received new health opportunities.
Evaluation Plan and Methods
- Purpose and clinical question: can asthma education improve the diagnosis?
- Time: long-term – one year, and short-term – 2-3 months;
- Stakeholders: nurses, children, and their parents;
- Theoretical framework: asthma is predetermined by the quality of life (Everhart et al., 2018; Ding et al., 2018), design: a cohort study;
- Confidentiality: consent forms and personal information is secured;
- Sample/setting/procedure: 20 African-American children aged between 7and 12/ an educational setting / 30-minutes lessons.
- Instrument: a 30-minute lesson in the course of three months.
Conclusion
- Asthma education is important;
- It allows increasing patients awareness of their conditions;
- Significance of information for African-American children with asthma was proved;
- Parents reported improved self-care of their children;
- Teaching sessions may also be used for other chronic conditions;
- This problem needs further research.
References
Agusala, V., Vij, P., Agusala, V., Dasari, V., & Kola, B. (2018). Can interactive parental education impact health care utilization in pediatric asthma: A study in rural Texas. Journal of International Medical Research, 1-11. Web.
Archibald, M. M., Hartling, L., Ali, S., Caine, V., & Scott, S. D. (2018). Developing “my asthma diary”: A process exemplar of a patient-driven arts-based knowledge translation tool. BMC Pediatrics, 18(1), 186-196.
Ding, L., Li, D., Wathen, M., Altaye, M., & Mersha, T. B. (2018). African ancestry is associated with cluster-based childhood asthma subphenotypes. BMC Medical Genomics, 11(1), 51-62.
Everhart, R. S., Greenlee, J. L., Winter, M. A., & Fiese, B. H. (2018). Primary and secondary caregiver reports of quality of life in pediatric asthma: Are they comparable? Applied Research in Quality of Life, 13(2), 371-383.
Todoric, K., Bangdiwala, S., Vadlamudi, A., Alarcon, L., & Hernandez, M. (2015). Assessing asthma in African American children using the asthma control test (ACT) and childhood ACT. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology: Official Publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, 114(4), 342-344.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2014). Children’s environmental health disparities: Black and African American children and asthma.