Asthma education taught by physical education teachers at grade schools: A randomised cluster trial.

OBJECTIVE

Assess whether the Asthma, Sport and Health (ASAH) programme taught by teachers improves asthmatics' quality of life, asthma knowledge, and reduces school absenteeism.

DESIGN

Randomised cluster trial parallel group.

PARTICIPANTS

2293 students (203 asthmatic) in the Intervention School group (IS) and 2214 in the Comparison School (CS) (224 asthmatic) belonging to primary school.

INTERVENTION

Implementation of the educational programme "Asthma, Sport and Health" at grade schools, taught by physical education teachers.

MAIN OUTCOME

Quality of life according to the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ).

SECONDARY OUTCOMES

Asthma knowledge, asthma control, school absenteeism.

RESULTS

After implementing the programme in the IS group, global quality of life improved significantly (p<0.001) as did their domains, symptoms (p<0.001), emotional function (p<0.001) and activity limitations (p<0.01), while in the CS group improvement was seen in global life quality (p<0.01) without any significant changes in the domains for emotional function and activity limitations. Asthma knowledge only increased in IS, among asthmatic students from 16.51 (CI 95% 16.04-16.98) to 18.16 (CI 95% 17.69-18.62) (p<0.001) and students without asthma from 15.49 (CI95% 15.36-15.63) to 17.50 (CI95% 17.36-17.64) (p<0.001). The multiple regression analysis showed that quality of life and its domains depend on asthma knowledge and above all, having well-controlled asthma. We found no decrease in school absenteeism.

CONCLUSIONS

The ASAH programme improved certain quality of life aspects regarding asthma (emotional function and limitation of activities) and asthma knowledge, but it failed to reduce school absenteeism NCT01607749.