Active airways for children and young people with asthma
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The feasibility of an exercise and educational programme 'Active Airways' on health outcomes in children and young people with Asthma of all severities
IRAS ID
343423
Contact name
Erol Gaillard
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leicester
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Importance: Asthma is the most common long-term disease in children and young people (CYP) affecting over 1 million children in the UK.
Regular exercise is safe in CYP with mild to moderate asthma, improving cardiovascular fitness and quality of life. However, children with severe asthma often do not take part in exercise leading to worsening lung function. Inactivity, often leads to weight gain, resulting in ever more severe asthma symptoms. The lack of physical activity in the severe asthma population emerges as an important major public health concern affecting the long-term health of the child.
Research question: We wish to find out if the Active Airways programme (exercise and education) is feasible and acceptable for CYP with severe asthma?
How: We will complete an exercise and educational study over a 12-week period for CYP aged 10-17 years with mild/ moderate and severe asthma. This study will engage children, their parents/ carer's with asthma in exercising safely. We will have 3 groups. Group 1- control group (usual care). Group 2- education only group. Group 3-exercise and education group 'Active airways'. We will screen and recruit participants under the care of Leicester Children's Hospital.
At baseline, 12 weeks, 6-months and 1-year outcome measures will be completed including questionnaires, exercise testing and respiratory and gut samples.
We will also complete focus groups at baseline and 12 weeks with CYP and parents/ carer's to better understand current physical activity levels and barriers/ motivators to being active. We will also be issuing wrist-worn accelerometers to measure physical activity levels during the 12-week programme.
Education only group will complete a 30 minute once a week session on asthma education for 12-weeks.
Active airways group will complete 3 exercise (interval training) sessions a week. Two sessions at home and one in person supervised by a physiotherapist with asthma education.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 1
REC reference
26/WS/0017
Date of REC Opinion
2 Mar 2026
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion