Primary Research (as of 04/01)

It was really hard to find people especially kids with asthma. We were able to talk to two teacher, one nurse, two mothers whose kids had asthma, and 5 individuals who had asthma growing up.

When we talked to these individuals we used questions from the the Question-storming session we had in class. For more information about this please see the blog post here :

Assumptions going when approaching Primary Research:

• There is a stigma around asthma, in that children with asthma are frail.
• Parents are more helicopter parents because of fear of child having an asthma attack when alone.
• The first asthma attack is traumatizing.

Insights from Interviews:

• There are different ways to approach and treat asthma in children. For eg. a parent mention about how 3 of her children and asthma at different ages and how it was all managed differently. Allergy vs Allergy induced. Different management ways.
• Asthma may not be stigmatized among children, but the use of the inhaler is in some ways. i.e. only using an inhaler if no one is around, or the meds making the child gain weight or become hyperactive.
• People always think of asthma as a situational event, but in reality it’s a long term effect that may resurface at any time.
• Children feel that it is something that everyone experiences and is not unique to them.
• Some children manipulate their parents with their asthma.
• A parent’s role is to make sure their children are prepared with their meds on them. The role of school is to make sure the children go through with using their meds.
• Communication between Primary CareGivers and Secondary CareGivers is a challenge. In some cases this resulted in the death of a child. School needed permission to treat child, couldn’t reach the parents, child died.
• Schools do not let children keep their medicine. So children do not have direct access to their medicine. In one interview the parents found out after a year that their child’s medicine was locked up in the principles office.
• Parents do not send child to school if their asthma is bad.

Areas of interest:

• Communication between different stakeholders- i.e primary care providers and secondary care providers.
• Connecting people who have knowledge of asthma

Resulting Research Questions:

• How can we let parents trust Secondary Caregivers more?
• How can we increase the communication between child, Secondary Caregiver and the school nurse?
• How do we provide emergency care to children who do not have direct access to meds?