A home visiting asthma education program: challenges to program implementation

Abstract

This study describes the implementation of a nurse home visiting asthma education program for low-income African American families of young children with asthma. Of 55 families, 71% completed the program consisting of eight lessons. The achievement of learning objectives was predicted by caregiver factors, such as education, presence of father or surrogate father in the household, and safety of the neighborhood, but not by child factors, such as age or severity of asthma as implied by the prescribed asthma medication regimen. Incompatibility between the scheduling needs of the families and the nurse home visitors was a major obstacle in delivering the program on time, despite the flexibility of the nurse home visitors. The authors suggest that future home-based asthma education programs contain a more limited number of home visits but add telephone follow-ups and address the broader needs of low-income families that most likely function as barriers to program success.