Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness and disproportionately affects children who are ethnic minorities and poor. Few studies of childhood asthma have been conducted with children who live in rural areas or have included Mexican American children in their samples. In an NIH/NINR funded study (Enhancing Children's and Parents'Asthma Management, R01 NR00770), the Asthma Plan for Kids was used to teach rural school-age children how to manage their asthma and parents received an individualized educational session during a home visit. Study findings demonstrated the intervention could improve children's asthma self-management, asthma knowledge, metered dose inhaler skill, asthma severity, and parents'asthma management and access to care. In this competing continuation, we propose adding a third arm to the current research design with schools randomized into either an in-school asthma intervention, an in-school attention-control intervention, or an alternate intervention-delivery format of a single 5.5-hour asthma day camp. The tri-ethnic sample will be composed of 320 Mexican-American, African-American, and White rural school-aged children (grades 2-5) who have asthma and their parents. In addition, we propose adding a non-invasive measure of chronic airway inflammation (exhaled nitric oxide) to assess the impact of changes in asthma management on airway inflammation. Families will be followed for a full year with data collection at baseline and at 1-month, 4-months, and 7-months after the intervention to assess improvement in children's asthma morbidity, asthma severity, airway inflammation, family asthma management and quality of life. The proposed Camp-Workshop format may be a more efficient way to deliver the intervention and if it proves to be equally as effective as the School-Home format in improving asthma management and health outcomes it may have greater potential for translation to practice in that it increases the options for intervention delivery.

Public Health Relevance

Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness. Asthma management occurs primarily in the context of the family and as such interventions that are effective in improving children's and parents'asthma management are needed.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01NR007770-05A2
Application #
7580235
Study Section
Nursing Science: Children and Families Study Section (NSCF)
Program Officer
Huss, Karen
Project Start
2001-08-01
Project End
2013-11-30
Budget Start
2008-12-01
Budget End
2009-11-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$381,777
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Austin
Department
Type
Schools of Nursing
DUNS #
170230239
City
Austin
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
78712
Horner, Sharon D; Timmerman, Gayle M; McWilliams, Bennie C (2018) Feasibility study of a combined lifestyle behaviors and asthma self-management intervention for school-aged children. J Spec Pediatr Nurs 23:e12224
Walker, Verónica García (2017) Exploration of the Influence of Factors Identified in the Literature on School-aged Children's Emotional Responses to Asthma. J Pediatr Nurs 33:54-62
Horner, Sharon D; Brown, Adama; Brown, Sharon A et al. (2016) Enhancing Asthma Self-Management in Rural School-Aged Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Rural Health 32:260-8
Horner, Sharon D; Brown, Adama (2015) An exploration of parent-child dyadic asthma management influences on quality of life. Issues Compr Pediatr Nurs 38:85-104
Horner, Sharon D; Brown, Adama (2014) Evaluating the effect of an asthma self-management intervention for rural families. J Asthma 51:168-77
Walker, Veronica García (2013) Minority caregivers' emotional responses and perceptions of the emotional responses of their children to asthma: comparing boys and girls. Issues Ment Health Nurs 34:325-34
Horner, Sharon D (2012) Best practices for improving intervention fidelity that every nurse should know. J Spec Pediatr Nurs 17:171-4
Walker, Veronica García (2012) Factors related to emotional responses in school-aged children who have asthma. Issues Ment Health Nurs 33:406-29
Horner, Sharon D; Brown, Sharon A; Walker, Veronica Garcia (2012) Is rural school-aged children's quality of life affected by their responses to asthma? J Pediatr Nurs 27:491-9
Horner, Sharon D; Fouladi, Rachel T (2008) Improvement of rural children's asthma self-management by lay health educators. J Sch Health 78:506-13

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