Improvement of rural children's asthma self-management by lay health educators.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of the present analysis is to examine changes in rural children's asthma self-management after they received lay health educator (LHE)-delivered classes.


METHODS
Elementary schools were randomly assigned to the treatment or attention-control condition and their participating students received either asthma education or general health promotion education, respectively. The triethnic sample was composed of 183 children (46% Hispanic, 29.5% non-Hispanic white, 22% African American, and 2.6% other categories) who had a mean age of 8.78 years (SD = 1.24). The time frame from baseline to postintervention was 12 weeks.


RESULTS
Repeated measures analysis of variance found main effects in changes in scores for children's asthma knowledge, asthma self-management, self-efficacy for managing asthma symptoms, and metered dose inhaler (MDI) technique and significant group interaction effects for the treatment intervention on the measures of children's asthma knowledge, asthma self-management, and MDI technique.


CONCLUSIONS
The delivery of an asthma health education intervention by trained LHEs to school-aged children was an effective means for improving children's knowledge and skills in asthma self-management.
Horner
Sharon D
SD
School of Nursing, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78701-1499, USA. horner@mail.utexas.edu
Fouladi
Rachel T
RT
D000328:Adult; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy*; D002648:Child; D003150:Community Health Workers; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008507:Medically Underserved Area; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D012423:Rural Health; D012572:School Health Services; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods*; D000078329:Workforce
D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents
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