The Nurses role in promoting paediatric asthma control

Aims: The purpose of this paper is to present a focused literature review on some of the significant interventions nurses use to improve paediatric asthma control and the implications for nursing education, research and... [ view full abstract ]

Aims: The purpose of this paper is to present a focused literature review on some of the significant interventions nurses use to improve paediatric asthma control and the implications for nursing education, research and practice.
Background: There is a high prevalence of paediatric asthma globally and nationally. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) launched in 1993 in collaboration with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (USA), the National Institutes of Health (USA), and the World Health Organization released guidelines regarding asthma prevention, diagnosis and management. One of their principal objectives is to improve the management of asthma thus reducing the need for hospitalisation and emergency department visits. Key components of these guidelines include correct inhaler technique and asthma education which would suggest nurses have a pivotal role to play. This literature review will identify relevant research based articles, critically analyse them and discuss the main conclusions and recommendations.
Methodology: Literature was searched via CINAHL, MEDLINE and SCOPUS using the keywords; nurs*, asthma, acute, exacerbation, child*, ped*, paed*, prevent*, educat*, inhaler technique, parent. Twenty peer-reviewed articles were critiqued using a validated critical appraisal approach.
Conclusions: The evidence basis for nurses’ role in improving paediatric asthma control by regularly assessing and demonstrating inhaler technique, providing education to parents as well as children and through implementing paediatric asthma programmes is robust.
Recommendations: There is scope for further research on the above themes, in particular qualitative research in order to obtain richer, insightful data. Further research is also needed in the development and evaluation of gold standard parental education packages/programmes.