[Outcome evaluation of education in asthmatic children: the Robert-Debré hospital's experience]

Asthma, the most frequent chronic disease in childhood, is often treated by a continuous preventive treatment associated to the treatment of attacks. This therapeutic scheme fits well with educative skills. The Robert Debré's asthma school has been created in December 1999. Two nurses specialized in child asthma education are working in the school, helped by the pediatric pulmonologists. Children 6-year-old or more, that are treated in the hospital for asthma may be sent to the asthma school for education. They receive individual or collective education for cognitive, psycho-affective and sensory-motor targets related to asthma.

To evaluate the outcome of educative action in childhood asthma and to study hospitalizations costs.

children who received education for the first time in the year 2000 or 2001 and in whom exhaustive computerized data were available were eligible for the study.

retrospective and comparative study one-year-before/one-year-after the first educational intervention, assessed by comparison of the numbers of scheduled medical consultations and hospitalizations (and their cost).

Sixty-six children were studied. We registered a significant increase of scheduled medical consultations (177 vs. 223; P < 0.03), and a very significant decrease of hospitalizations for asthma attacks (32 vs. 11; P < 0.001) without influence of the number of educational interventions and with a 52% decrease in costs (84,788 vs. 40,073 euros; P < 0.03).

Asthmatic children education is a useful tool to improve medical follow-up and to decrease hospitalizations number. In a two-year survey, the decrease of cost in a group of 66 children is 44,715 euros.