IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION OF A HEALTH EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR BRONCHIAL ASTHMA IN CHILDREN

Abstract

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of children and adolescents,its morbidity and mortality have increased over the past two decades. Patient education is an essential component of successful asthma management aiming to reduce its morbidity and mortality.

Our aim was to develop a health educ tion program for children having bronchial asthma, and to evaluate the impact of this program in changing knowledge and skills of parents and old children toward the disease.

The study was carried out on sixty children suffering from bronchial asthma aged 2-13 years who attended the out-patient clinic and the in­ patient pediatric department of the Suez Canal University Hospital during the study period from April to Dece ber 2001.

A health education program was implemented and was given to mothers and their children by a face to face interview and Arabic handouts was given freely to them.

Our results proved that the health education program improved the asthma knowledge from 63% to 88.8% after it. Inhaler usage also improved after the program from 28.7% to 45.3%.

The study also showed that the educational state of the mother, the socio­ economic state ofthe family, the duration of the disease and the degree of asthma severity are important factors contributing to change in degree of knowledge before and after the program.

We concluded that patient education is an important part of asthma management program and the education should start at the time of diagnosis and should be continuous and integrated into every step of clinical asthma care.