Short intervention can improve knowledge about childhood asthma in nursing staff

Twenty-nine community or hospital-based general nurses from the Upper Hunter Valley attended a 3-hr seminar on asthma and completed a previously validated asthma knowledge questionnaire before and 6 weeks after the seminar. The mean initial score (maximum possible 31) was 20.6 [95% confidence interval (CI) 19.1-22.0], which increased at follow-up to 26.2 (95% CI 25.0-27.3). Only 5 of 29 nurses scored 24 or more initially compared with 17 of 21 at follow-up. Even after the seminar, the nurses had major deficiencies in knowledge about preventive medication and the management of exercise-induced asthma.