Using action research to implement an integrated pediatric asthma case management and eHealth intervention for low-income families.
Asthma case management and education programs improve pediatric asthma outcomes, but designing rigorous randomized controlled studies that accurately measure effects while encouraging parent participation is challenging. This is especially so for low-income African American families, who face significantly more severe asthma and social stress than their middle-class counterparts. Action research can help health education researchers negotiate between the elegant and complex designs favored by scientists with the real-life challenges of recruitment, implementation, and retention. This article discusses how a multidisciplinary team uses action research concepts to continuously adjust originally proposed protocols through the planning and implementation phases to encourage participation in a year-long randomized controlled trial of a program that combines telephone asthma case management and comprehensive online asthma education. As a result of these efforts, a higher proportion of low-income African American families are recruited into the study than originally proposed.
Wise
Meg
M
Center for Health Enhancement Support Systems, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 610 Walnut Street, Madison, WI 53726, USA. mewise@wisc.edu
Pulvermacher
Alice
A
Shanovich
Kathleen Kelly
KK
Gustafson
David H
DH
Sorkness
Christine
C
Bhattacharya
Abhik
A
D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001249:Asthma / Q000208:ethnology / Q000628:therapy*; D019090:Case Management / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002648:Child; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research / Q000379:methods*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008484:Medicaid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D018579:Patient Selection; D011204:Poverty Areas; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods; D012107:Research Design; D013689:Telephone; D014481:United States; D016903:Drug Monitoring