Clinical Pediatrics: Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2572-0775
ISSN: 2572-0775
Marina Reznik
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA
Keynote: Clin Pediatr
Physical activity (PA) is important for asthma management. However, child and parental illness beliefs such as fear about asthma attacks with exercise may preclude child PA participation. We developed a multifaceted school-based intervention to address this and other barriers to PA. Our objective was to assess intervention effects on asthma and exercise risk perception, self-efficacy and outcome expectancy in urban schoolchildren with asthma and their parents. We conducted a pilot cluster RCT in children (7-10 years) with asthma attending 4 Bronx, New York schools (2 intervention, 2 control). Intervention consisted of a school-wide asthma awareness event, collaboration with child�s physician to assure optimal treatment, classroom-based PA, and asthma education for families and school personnel. Parents and children completed surveys at baseline and 6-months post-intervention to assess asthma and exercise risk perception, self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. ANOVA was used to compare scores controlling for baseline. We recruited 109 child-parent dyads (mean age 8.6 (SD .99) years, 53% male, 80% hispanic). Post-intervention, parents were significantly less likely to believe that exercise is harmful to asthma and were less worried about stigma than controls. Children tended to feel more competent in overcoming barriers to PA, had a greater intention to participate in PA, were less likely to feel that exercise would have negative consequences on asthma, and were less worried overall and about asthma-related stigma. Our intervention improved child and parental illness beliefs about asthma and exercise. These results may have implications for policy change to incorporate intervention components in urban schools.
Marina Reznik is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a General Pediatrician and a Child Health Researcher at Montefiore Medical Center. Her research focuses on development and evaluation of community-and school-based interventions to improve the health care services and outcomes for medically underserved minority children with asthma. She teaches and mentors medical students, residents and post-doctoral students, and provides clinical care to children from 0-21 years of age. She is an author of over 60 articles, book chapters and editorials and her research has been presented both nationally and internationally.