Comparison of School-Based Supervised Versus Parental Supervised Asthma Therapy

March 2, 2014 updated by: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Effectiveness of School Based Supervised Asthma Therapy

  1. Develop a simple school-based intervention using school-based supervised asthma therapy to increase adherence to asthma medication.
  2. Implement a school-based internet monitoring system within both the school-based supervised asthma therapy and parent supervised asthma therapy groups to record asthma symptoms, peak flow meter readings, school absences, and usage of rescue medications at school.
  3. Randomly assign 250 children from inner-city school systems to either school-based supervised asthma therapy or parental supervised asthma therapy.
  4. Compare children assigned to school-based supervised asthma therapy with children assigned to parent supervised asthma therapy, in regards to time-averaged proportion having at least one exacerbation per month, rescue medication use, peak flow meter readings, asthma symptoms, school absences, and asthma self-management knowledge.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

BACKGROUND:

Pediatric asthma is a well-documented public health issue in the United States. The impact of pediatric asthma can be measured by both health care costs and morbidity. Whereas many factors contribute to the high health care costs of asthma, much of the morbidity can be directly attributed to lack of adherence to medical treatments. The consequence of non-adherence for most individuals with ashtma is exacerbations. Greater numbers of exacerbations lead to increased school absenteeism, greater activity limitations, decreased quality of life for both parent and child, increased urgent health care use and costs, and increased parental days missed at work. Therefore, adherence to treatment is essential for proper asthma management and ultimate reductions in morbidity.

Asthma morbidity, as measured by the number of exacerbations, is largely preventable with patient education and optimal treatment. However, it has been demonstrated that patient education alone is insufficient to decrease asthma morbidity. Optimal treatment is essential to control asthma morbidity. Inhaled corticosteroids offer considerable protection against asthma exacerbations. However, only a minority of asthma patients take their inhaled steroids as recommended by the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) guidelines. Therefore, the Pediatric Asthma Guidelines recommend development and testing of programs (including school-based programs) to increase adherence with therapy.

Because morbidity is higher in inner-city, low-income, minority children, this study will collaborate with several inner-city, low-income, minority school districts to examine the effects of school-based supervised asthma therapy.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

This study is a longitudinal two-group trial of the effectiveness of a school-based supervised asthma therapy program. Two hundred and fifty children will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: school-based supervised asthma therapy or parental supervised asthma therapy. The children will be followed for 16 months.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

295

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Alabama
      • Birmingham, Alabama, United States, 35233-7337
        • University of Alabama Birmingham Lung Health Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

6 years to 12 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Persistent asthma requiring daily controller medication
  • Enrolled at a participating elementary school

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: 1
Supervised therapy
Behavioral: School-Based Supervised Asthma Therapy
Child's inhaled steroid use supervised daily at school
No Intervention: 2
Inhaled steroid use as usual care

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Asthma exacerbations
Time Frame: Measured at 15 months
Measured at 15 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Collaborators

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Lynn B. Gerald, PhD, MSPH, University of Alabama Birmingham Lung Health Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2004

Study Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 6, 2005

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 6, 2005

First Posted (Estimate)

May 9, 2005

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 4, 2014

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 2, 2014

Last Verified

December 1, 2007

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 174
  • R01HL075043 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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