Among asthma sufferers, children form a separate category. Education methods suitable for adults will not be appropriate for children. Also, education directed at children will be something that they will carry for the rest of their lives. In this sense, the resources and effort spent on education young asthma patients is a good investment. Accordingly, the education program designed as part of this essay includes “community asthma classes in schools, day-care centres, churches, and community centres”, which are convenient places for children to attend (Slutsky, 2001).
Hence, the program adopts a family-centric approach in all its modules. The education sessions are so scheduled that both parents and children are trained simultaneously in separate enclosures. Further, regular revisions are undertaken for the aid of “parent facilitators, peer educators, school nurses, childcare providers, and child welfare agencies in the targeted community”. The program is also slated to adhere to time-tested methods of delivering inhaler usage modules that covers the basic requirements.
The following is the planned outline of different parent sessions:
Session 1 Introduction to asthma in general
What is asthma and why does my child have it? In this session parents will explained how asthma affects their child's body.
Session 2 Triggers of Asthma and Prevention Techniques
In this session different things in the environment that trigger asthma are talked about. Parents are taught how to avoid these triggers and to prevent an asthma attack from starting.
Session 3 Medicines and Asthma Devices (focusing on the use of inhaler)
In this session various differences in the medicines, how they work to keep asthma symptoms from starting, etc are discussed. Th e purpose of the asthma devices (inhaler, spacer, and peak flow meter), the proper way to use them, and how to take care of them are also discussed.
Session 4 Asthma Action Plan
This session will deal with the usage of peak flow meter and the inhaler to help parents make a medicine plan for their child. This will give parents the information that they will need to treat asthma early when they occur.
Session 5 School and Family Issues and Questions and Answers
Ways to help teachers and school nurses to deal with the child's asthma are explored. A look at how asthma affects the family as a whole and what the family can do to relieve stress, yet at the same time be supportive to their asthmatic child is analyzed.
While the above education plan is specifically designed for parents of asthmatic children, they are equally applicable to adult asthma patients also. In this case, the adult patients will assume the role of their own parents. The above plan of training was put through a test run, in order to check its efficacy. The following table was employed to gauge the effectiveness of the program. Again, this evaluation tool is the one used for adult patients. The table for asthmatic children is very similar to this (Boychuk, 2006).
Implementation:
The above set-out plans were implemented by paying attention to the smallest of details in the plan. The following were the various components in the implementation of the action plans: