Improving Parent Understanding of Instructions About Asthma Care

Asthma has an especially great impact on poor urban children and their families. In addition to higher asthma prevalence and morbidity, those in low SES urban areas are at risk for low health literacy. Low health literacy is associated with poorer asthma outcomes. The provision of a written asthma action plan has been shown to help with asthma management and to reduce hospitalizations and ER visits. Poor urban families who may have low literacy may need an alternative asthma action plan to convey the treatment plan.

This pilot study proposes to investigate whether a plain language asthma action plan can improve parent understanding and adherence with medication instructions, compared to standard written materials, among parents of children with asthma. This is an RCT in which parents of children with asthma will be randomized to either receive a pictogram-based low literacy asthma action plan, or a standard action plan (AAAAI), to examine whether those who receive the low literacy plan have improved asthma action plan knowledge when presented with a hypothetical scenario.

A second part of the study is to examine whether providers who are given the pictogram-based low literacy asthma action plan will be more likely to counsel about certain aspects of asthma management (eg. need for daily medications even when sick, spacer use, confusion between everyday and rescue inhaler)compared to providers who receive use a standard action plan (AAAAI). This is an RCT in which pediatric providers are randomized to counsel a hypothetical patient using the pictogram-based action plan or the standard action plan (AAAAI).