Group Asthma Education in a Pediatric Inpatient Setting

Asthma education is an important component of asthma care and management. Children and parents often do not receive asthma education, and frequently, education programs are time consuming. The purpose of this medical record review was to retrospectively determine the impact of a short, group-based, inpatient asthma self-management program on the number of children/parents who received complete asthma education before discharge. The self-management program was instituted in 2006. Participants consisted of all children admitted to a New England children's hospital from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2006, with a primary diagnosis of asthma. Findings revealed that significantly more (p < .001) children/parents received complete asthma education before discharge in 2006 versus 2005.