Empowering children and young people who have asthma
Sinha, I.P.; Brown, L.; Fulton, O.; Gait, L.; Grime, C.; Hepworth, C.; Lilley, A.; Murray, M.; Simba, J.
Archives of Disease in Childhood 106(2): 125-129
2021
ISSN/ISBN: 1468-2044 PMID: 32709687 DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2020-318788Document Number: 581293
Asthma is the most common chronic condition of childhood. In this review, we discuss an overview of strategies to empower children and young people with asthma. The key aspects of empowerment are to enable shared decision making and self-management, and help children minimise the impact of asthma on their life. The evidence behind these strategies is either sparse or heterogenous, and it is difficult to identify which interventions are most likely to improve clinical outcomes. Wider determinants of health, in high-resource and low-resource settings, can be disempowering for children with asthma. New approaches to technology could help empower young people with asthma and other chronic health conditions.