A telephone coaching intervention to improve asthma self-management behaviors

Long recognizing that asthma, one of the most common chronic childhood diseases, is difficult to manage, the National Asthma Education Prevention Program developed clinical practice guidelines to assist health care providers, particularly those in the primary care setting. Yet, maintenance asthma care still fails to meet national standards. Therefore, in an attempt to improve and support asthma self-management behaviors for parents of children 5 to 12 years of age with persistent asthma, a novel nurse telephone coaching intervention was tested in a randomized, controlled trial. A detailed description of the intervention is provided along with parent satisfaction results, an overview of the training used to prepare the nurses, and a discussion of the challenges experienced and lessons learned.