Comparison of parent and student responses to asthma surveys: 2 different experiences with similar results.
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Biomedical subjects
Angelina R Wittich
Publications and source records attributed to Angelina R Wittich.
Outcomes for a comprehensive school-based asthma management program.
This article describes the evaluation of a comprehensive school-based asthma management program in an inner-city, largely African-American school system. All 54 elementary schools (combined enrollment 13,247 students) from a single urban school system participated in this study. Schools were randomly divided between immediate and delayed intervention programs. The intervention consisted of 3 separate educational programs (for school faculty/staff, students with asthma, and peers without asthma) and medical management for the children with asthma (including an Individual Asthma Action Plan, medications, and peakflow meters). Children with asthma were identified using a case detection program and 736 were enrolled into the intervention study. No significant differences were observed in school absences, grade point average, emergency room visits, or hospitalizations between the immediate and delayed intervention groups. Significant increases in knowledge were observed in the immediate intervention group. This study of a school-based asthma management education and medical intervention program did not show any differences between the intervention and control groups on morbidity outcomes. Our experience leads us to believe that such measures are difficult to impact and are not always reliable. Future researchers should be aware of the problems associated with using such measures. In addition, connecting children with a regular source of health care in this population was difficult. More intensive methods of medical management, such as school-based health centers or supervised asthma therapy, might prove more effective in inner-city schools.
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Comparison of parent and student responses to asthma surveys: students grades 1-4 and their parents from an urban public school setting.
This study compared parent and child responses to a symptom questionnaire as a means of determining whether child and parent responses are equally valuable in case-detection procedures. We completed a study validating a multistage case-detection procedure. The case-detection procedure classified students into 3 categories based on their parents' questionnaire responses (probable asthma, possible asthma, and negative for asthma). Those who were classified as possible asthma by questionnaire underwent further testing, including spirometry and exercise challenge. The children with abnormal testing results were considered to have probable asthma. McNemar's test and kappa coefficients were used to examine parent-child agreement. Sensitivity and specificity of the case-detection procedure were compared using either the parent's or the child's responses to the questionnaire. The data indicated moderate agreement between parent and child responses to questions regarding previous diagnosis of asthma and past asthma therapy (p < .001, kappa coefficients of 0.6030 and 0.5966, respectively). Sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values in the multistage case-detection procedure were similar when using either parent or child responses to the questionnaire. Among the false negatives, the distribution of asthma severity was consistent whether using child or parent responses. Parent-child agreement did not differ significantly by gender or age of the child or whether the child had a previous diagnosis of asthma. These results suggest that the use of child responses is a viable option for case detection, particularly in identifying those with a previous diagnosis of asthma
Adolescent↗