Improved Asthma Control - Essay Example

P= adult asthmatics, I= asthma education of patient and family C= no formal education program, and O= improved health and functional status. The search via the MEDLINE database through http://www.pubmed.gov was conducted in the PICO format. Keywords "asthma education" for the "I" in the PICO format was entered into the search box and yielded 5483 articles. The next step in the search conducted was "improved asthma control" to isolate the "O" of the PICO question. This search yielded 1163 article references.

A combination of "asthma education" and "improved asthma control" was searched through the Medline database with a return of 243 articles. Limits were then imposed to isolate specific articles related closely to the question. The limits are as follows: "published in the last 5 years", "core clinical journals", "Nursing journals" and "All Adult: 19+ years." The search: ((asthma education)) AND ((improved asthma control)) AND ("last 5 years"[PDat] AND (jsubsetaim[text] OR jsubsetn[text]) AND (adult[MeSH]) ) produced eight articles for review.

Further limit of "Nursing journals" without "Core clinical journals" yielded four articles only. One study completed at the University of Florida College of Nursing entitled Promoting adherence: effects of theory-based asthma education, utilized audiotapes, booklets, both, or no additional educational materials. This study revealed that out of the 46 adults participating, a significant benefit of improved adherence for medication use verified by pharmacy records was found in the education intervention group.

The group was followed at three and six-month intervals (Schaffer & Tian, 2004). Another study which closely relates the clinical question was conducted by the Department of Internal Medicine, Croatia. The study implicates that by promoting different educational plans a better asthma control and also the asthma-related quality of life (QoL) can be achieved. The study was conducted with 60 adult patients with moderate persistent asthma and they were tested for the benefit of individual verbal instructions (IVI), written information (asthma booklet) and also by conducting integrated asthma classes (AS).

The study brings to a close prominence on the fact that AS caused the best improvement in QoL but the overall response in terms of parameters of asthma control and QoL was observed through IVI (Urek, Tudoric, Plavec, Urek, Koprivc-Milenovic, Stojic, 2005). These two studies were chosen from the multiple listed articles in the MEDLINE database due to their relevance to the clinical question. The subjects of the study were adult asthmatics; the focus of the trials was education of one portion of the study group and a control group.

The assignments to control groups were randomly chosen, which adds to the validity of the study. The articles were published in respected professional journals and conducted in two different schools of Nursing. Further, there was no listed underwriting from pharmaceutical or marketing firms to skew the evidence.