Date of Conferral
2019
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Joan Moon
Abstract
Asthma is a disease that compromises the airways of the respiratory system, and is a prominent reason for hospitalization and emergency care needs. Over 6.1 million children are estimated to suffer from asthma. Asthmatic patients at an urban pediatric hospital emergency department (ED) were found to have higher revisit rates than the national average for large urban hospitals. The lack of a clinical guideline for educating families in patient care management at home could have contributed to readmission rates. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based pediatric asthma education clinical guideline to aide healthcare providers with discharge education and home management of the pediatric asthmatic patient. The practice question that guided this project focused on discovering what evidence-based pediatric asthma guidelines could be found in the literature for providing discharge education instructions for the pediatric asthma patient from which the guideline for the ED could be developed. The appraisal of guidelines research and evaluation II instrument was used to guide and score the project. An expert panel consisting of the nurse educator of the ED and medical directors of the ED and Pulmonology scored the guideline resulting in an overall score of 83%. The experts recommended the guideline without modification. Providing families with education on home patient management might enable caretakers to identify problems, recognize potential exacerbations, and prevent return visits to the ED, resulting in social change by improving the wellbeing of pediatric patients with asthma and their families.
Recommended Citation
Wesolowski, Andrew, "An Evidence-Based Clinical Guideline to Improve Pediatric Asthma Outcomes" (2019). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 7519.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7519
