title: Asthma education: the adolescent experience.
abstract: Recent studies show that prevalence of asthma is higher among adolescents than children. Adolescents have poor asthma self-management skills resulting in a significant increase in the severity of asthma exacerbations and a reduction in their quality of life. Despite this, few self-management programs have been developed for adolescents. Adolescents experience developmental transitions that both hinder and facilitate asthma self-management. In this paper we discuss developmental transitions in cognition, knowledge, autonomy, identity development, and peer relations in terms of their influence on adolescents' management of asthma. Next, we describe the Asthma Self-Management for Adolescents (ASMA) program that incorporates developmental characteristics into an age-appropriate school-based asthma education program. Preliminary data is presented indicating that the program is successful in enrolling and engaging the interest of adolescents with persistent asthma.
authors.affiliation: New York University Child Study Center, 215 Lexington Avenue, 13th Floor, New York, NY 10016, USA. jeanmarie.ruzzese@med.nyu.edu
authors.forename: Jean-Marie
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bruzzese
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bonner
authors.forename: Elisa J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Vincent
authors.forename: Beverley J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Sheares
authors.forename: Robert B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Mellins
authors.forename: Moshe J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Levison
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wiesemann
authors.forename: Yunling
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Barry J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Evans
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001249:Asthma / Q000628:therapy*; D006803:Human Development; D006801:Humans; D009519:New York City; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D010379:Peer Group; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012648:Self Care; D012933:Social Identification