Assessing Available Adolescent Self-Reported Measures for Asthma Management: A Systematic Literature Review.

Objective: Asthma is a common chronic disease and a substantial public health problem for children, adolescents, and adults. Adolescence, a period of increased independence and striving for autonomy, is an opportune time for youth transitioning to adulthood to assume more responsibility for their own asthma self-management. However, accurate measures of adolescent asthma outcomes are limited. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify self-reported asthma measures currently available in the empirical literature focused on adolescent populations. Methods: Search terms were based on the National Library of Medical Subject Headings and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Databases searched included CINAHL, Nursing Allied Health Prevention, Medline, ProQuest, and PubMed. Included studies were peer reviewed and published in English between 2010 and 2022. All studies reported on asthma measures for adolescents between 10 and 19 years old. Results: Nineteen studies were included, comprising 15 experimental and 4 quasi-experimental. This review revealed the following asthma measure domains: asthma knowledge, self-efficacy, attitudes, self-care, self-regulation, symptom prevention and management, medication adherence, asthma disease control, symptoms, and quality of life (QOL) for evaluating psychosocial, behavioral, clinical, and QOL outcomes. Conclusion: This review revealed the necessity of developing a comprehensive measure to assess the asthma self-management behaviors of adolescents. A comprehensive tool related to adolescent asthma self-management behavior would enhance the assessment and evaluation of adolescent asthma self-management behaviors and extend the science and clinical practice around adolescent self-management. Present measures for asthma self-management behavior for adolescents are limited; therefore, developing a valid and reliable measure is necessary not only to assess adolescents' asthma self-management behavior outcomes but also to identify and evaluate the essential components to include in educational interventions for adolescent self-management.

Evaluation of a pediatric asthma high-risk scoring algorithm.

OBJECTIVES: Identification of patients with asthma at increased risk for hospitalization and emergency department (ED) visits presents opportunity for intervention. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of computerized health plan claims data. METHODS: Texas Children's Health Plan, a large Medicaid managed care program, developed an asthma risk scoring algorithm using the clinically relevant parameters of hospitalization for asthma, ED visits for asthma, short-acting ß agonist medication dispensing, inhaled corticosteroid medication dispensing, number of prescribing providers, loss to follow-up, and oral corticosteroid dispensing. The risk score performance was evaluated using 2016-2018 risk scores to predict 2017-2019 asthma hospitalizations and ED visits. RESULTS: We identified 107,811 unique members aged 1 to less than 18 years with an asthma diagnosis. For those aged 3 to less than 18 years, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for risk score predicting hospitalization ranged from 0.72 to 0.79. For those aged 1 to less than 3 years, the AUC ranged from 0.65 to 0.69. Those with a risk score of 1 or greater accounted for 20% to 23% of pediatric members 3 to less than 18 years with asthma but 53% to 56% of asthma hospitalizations in the follow-up year. Sixteen to eighteen percent of those aged 3 to less than 18 years with a risk score of 9 or greater were hospitalized in the follow-up year. CONCLUSIONS: Texas Children's Health Plan asthma risk score stratifies risk of asthma hospitalization and ED visits for Medicaid-insured children. The risk score performs better for children aged 3 to less than 18 years than for those aged 1 to less than 3 years.