Pre-Hospital Management of wheeze in young children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How do parents and caregivers manage acute wheezing in preschool children before coming to hospital? A descriptive study.
IRAS ID
270048
Contact name
Romanie Hannah
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 28 days
Research summary
A third of children experience wheeze prior to their third birthday, but only half of these will go on to be diagnosed with asthma. Management of preschool wheeze is largely based on asthma treatment guidelines, but in general there is less certainty among professionals about how to treat acute wheezing in preschool children. In general, blue inhalers (relievers) are given using an inhaler and a spacer (a chamber and mask which sits over the child’s mouth and nose to administer medicine), in order to open up the narrowed airways, but a range of doses are advised.
Parents should be taught how to recognise and manage wheeze, including what to do if the child deteriorates, but because of professional uncertainty and lack of consultation time, parents and caregivers receive inconsistent advice about managing their child’s wheeze. As a result, some children may be receiving too much or too little treatment at home.
The aim of this study is to describe variation in treatments parents and caregivers are giving at home to manage a child with wheeze.
We want to describe clinical signs parents and caregivers are responding to and how confident they feel about managing wheeze. This would identify specific learning needs. Study participants are both children attending the emergency department with wheeze and caregivers and parents attending with them.
This descriptive study will be conducted in the Children’s Emergency Department at the Royal Alexander Children’s Hospital. Eligible patients will be identified after they have seen a doctor. Parents and caregivers will be asked
to complete an online survey during their attendance. This survey will include: what treatment they gave at home before attending hospital, recall of previous education and self-rating of confidence with knowledge of wheeze and inhaler techniques. Basic demographic information about the child and their attendance will be gathered from our electronic attendance database.REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/1617
Date of REC Opinion
27 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion