Asthma education programme in Russia: educating patients.

To address the recent rise in asthma morbidity and mortality in Russia, an intervention study was conducted to improve asthma diagnosis, treatment and prevention. US recommendations for asthma management were adapted for use in educating Moscow families with children with asthma. Two hundred and fifty-two children with asthma aged 4-14 years receiving health care in eight Moscow public health clinics together with their parents were enrolled in the study to see whether US teaching manuals for asthma management would be acceptable and effective in Russia. Children at four of the clinics with recent asthma attacks were randomly assigned to either the education or control group to test if patient education and guided asthma care would improve outcomes for patients. Modern medications were made available to both groups to see if training in the US guidelines was necessary to get physicians to use the medications. Children with recent asthma attacks at the other four clinics were defined as comparison group 1 to control for the possible effect of medication availability. All children at the eight clinics who had no asthma attacks composed comparison group 2 to see if the outcomes for these children would change over time. One-year follow-up results showed significant improvement in asthma self-management skills of children and parents, in terms of asthma treatment, only among those in the education group. Significant increases were observed in the subgroup of children in the education group using anti-inflammatory drugs for asthma control. Children in the education group had markedly increased peak flow rates and reduced daily peak flow variability as compared to control and comparison groups. There was a significantly greater reduction in doctor visits by the education group of children compared to control. Presumably, changes in parents' and children's behaviour in terms of asthma treatment and prevention skills, proper treatment of the disease and access to medications could be responsible for reducing asthma morbidity in children.