The Journal of asthma : official journal of the Association for the Care of Asthma
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Asthma is the most common chronic illness in childhood. Recruiting children and their parents into a research study in a busy urban emergency department (ED) is challenging. The purpose of this manuscript is to describe the recruitment process and the results of our recruitment in soliciting children and their parents to participate in an ED-based asthma research study. ⋯ Recruiting subjects into long-term follow-up studies in the ED setting is a departure from traditional ED studies. The ED enrollment offers the distinct advantage of capturing subjects who are unlikely to present for care in other locations. We were able to successfully recruit low-income urban parents of children with asthma for study of both short-term and long-term outcomes. Careful attention to planning and then integration of enrollers into the ED setting can result in successful recruitment of patients and their parents. The enrollment process successfully captured the subjects of interest without bias.
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Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness and the leading cause of missed school days. School is a potential location for establishing an asthma education program for children and their parents/caregivers designed to improve disease management. ⋯ A comprehensive, school-based asthma management program can successfully improve asthma control and reduce absenteeism in elementary and middle school students and caregiver lost workdays.