Purpose: The goals are to gauge caregivers' knowledge of at-home asthma triggers and identify the areas on which educational campaigns can focus to alleviate a child's asthma symptoms.
Design and methods: Families with children with moderate to severe asthmatic symptoms who had been recently hospitalized or in the emergency room were invited to participate in a home visit program. As part of the home visit, caregivers of the asthmatic children were asked a series of questions on asthma triggers and the measures for eliminating the triggers (N = 218).
Results: Findings show a gap between caregivers' perception of asthma triggers and the actions to mitigate or avoid such triggers.
Conclusions: Overall findings show that home environments were suboptimal for the management and control of child asthma conditions. Knowledge about home triggers as well as the actions and efforts by caregivers and landlords to mitigate these was found to be inadequate. Even when caregivers are aware of the presence of at-home triggers, actions to minimize exposure to the trigger do not always follow due to a lack of power, resource, and knowledge.
Practice implications: The findings raise the need for additional research to investigate the reasons for the lack of actions, advocacy for low-income families to live in a healthy environment, continued education and empowerment, and patient/caregiver-doctor partnership. Additionally, the provision of community support through community advocacy and training of culturally competent healthcare providers are needed for the successful management of pediatric asthma among African American children.
Keywords: Asthma; Caregiver education; Health promotion; Home visit program; Pediatrics; Racial minority.
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