Education of asthma in school children and evaluation

EDUCATION OF ASTHMA IN SCHOOL CHILDREN AND EVALUATIONABSTRACTAlthough there have been striking advances in the clinical treatment of asthma inrecent decades, the frequency, morbidity and mortality of asthma are increasing and the maincause is accused to be the lack of education.A questionnaire including 29 questions and 67 subtitles was conducted in a privateschool in Ankara between February and April 2006. A total of 642 students from the 6th to 8thgrades answered the questionnaire. Later a brochure about asthma were distributed and thesame questionnaire was again carried out one week later to evaluate the degree of change intheir knowledge.We categorized the questions and evaluated the answers accordingly. The knowledgeof the students improved after the distribution of brochure in the categories stated below: i)general knowledge and approach to asthma, ii) the symptoms and triggers of asthma, iii)asthma and sport, iv) treatment of asthma, v) asthma and school. When we evaluated all theanswers together, the success improved significantly after the education. The students withasthma had significantly higher scores in the questions about symptoms of asthma and asthmatriggers than the students without asthma. Although there was no difference before theeducation, female students had significantly higher scores than male students after theeducation. Besides, the students whose mothers were educated from university had higherscores both before and after the education. However, the education of the father did notinfluence the results. The results of this study reveals that the average degree of knowledge ofhealthy adolescents about asthma improved sufficiently after the education and brochure, amaterial of education, is effective in education.