Parents’ and Children’s Evaluation of a Child Asthma Self-Management Program

The purpose of this descriptive study was to evaluate the acceptability and helpfulness of a child asthma self-management program. Following a 16-week study that tested an asthma selfmanagement intervention to promote children’s adherence to daily peak flow monitoring (PFM), a program evaluation was completed utilizing a personal interview with each parent/child dyad (N =77). Ease of use of the PF meter, the importance of PFM, strategies that helped children to remember to perform daily PFM, and the helpfulness of the overall self-management program were evaluated. Descriptive analyses of parents’ and children’s self-reports were conducted. Preliminary data analyses of participants who responded suggest that parents and children, respectively, reported that PFM (84%, 82%) was easy to perform. Ninety-six percent of the parent/child dyads indicated that PFM was important to do on a daily basis. Several behavioral strategies, particularly parent reminders (71%, 66%) were found to help children remember to perform daily PFM. The overall program was reported to be helpful (95%, 74%) in improving asthma self-management. Program evaluation from the participant’s perspective is important to future development of acceptable asthma self-management protocols