Parental satisfaction with an outpatient asthma-management program for children and adolescents - A pilot study

The objective of our asthma management program is to optimize the disease management and the quality of life of children and adolescents with asthma. An improvement in coping with asthma should be achieved by teaching theoretical aspects and practical skills. The training is performed in small groups of children and adolescents of similar age, going for 10 sessions each lasting 90 minutes. Additionally, in 1999 and 2000, the program was also offered as a two-week workshop in the summer holidays. The goal of this study was the assessment of parental satisfaction with the outpatient asthma management program for children and adolescents. We developed a short questionnaire and assessed the following aspects: general parental satisfaction with the training, judgement of the children's knowledge about asthma, coping skills and recommendation of the training. All parents (n = 138) whose children/adolescents attended the training between 1999 and 2002 were invited to take part in this study. 106 parents (76.8%) returned the questionnaire. The results showed that most parents (95%) were highly satisfied with this asthma management program. They equally positively rated their children's coping skills (87% classified them as "much better") and their knowledge (96% rated it as "very good" resp. "good") about asthma after the training. Almost all parents (97%) recommended our program. The results were very helpful for planning the recently started, prospective case-control study on outcome evaluation of this program.