Asthma education taught by physical education teachers at grade schools: A randomised cluster trial.

OBJECTIVE: Assess whether the Asthma, Sport and Health (ASAH) programme taught by teachers improves asthmatics' quality of life, asthma knowledge, and reduces school absenteeism.

DESIGN: Randomised cluster trial parallel group.

PARTICIPANTS: 2293 students (203 asthmatic) in the Intervention School group (IS) and 2214 in the Comparison School (CS) (224 asthmatic) belonging to primary school.

INTERVENTION: Implementation of the educational programme "Asthma, Sport and Health" at grade schools, taught by physical education teachers.

MAIN OUTCOME: Quality of life according to the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ).

SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Asthma knowledge, asthma control, school absenteeism.

RESULTS: After implementing the programme in the IS group, global quality of life improved significantly (p<0.001) as did their domains, symptoms (p<0.001), emotional function (p<0.001) and activity limitations (p<0.01), while in the CS group improvement was seen in global life quality (p<0.01) without any significant changes in the domains for emotional function and activity limitations. Asthma knowledge only increased in IS, among asthmatic students from 16.51 (CI 95% 16.04-16.98) to 18.16 (CI 95% 17.69-18.62) (p<0.001) and students without asthma from 15.49 (CI95% 15.36-15.63) to 17.50 (CI95% 17.36-17.64) (p<0.001). The multiple regression analysis showed that quality of life and its domains depend on asthma knowledge and above all, having well-controlled asthma. We found no decrease in school absenteeism.

CONCLUSIONS: The ASAH programme improved certain quality of life aspects regarding asthma (emotional function and limitation of activities) and asthma knowledge, but it failed to reduce school absenteeism NCT01607749.