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Emergency department staff may help identify, recruit at-risk patients for asthma intervention program

Black patients with asthma may be more likely to participate in online asthma prevention activities if they are approached in the emergency department during an acute asthma event than by telephone are mail, according to results from a recent pilot study.

“[T]he best method for reaching urban adolescents with uncontrolled asthma seems to be to approach them in the ED. This method is labor intensive and enrollment activities must avoid competing with other priorities in the delivery of care. However, if research strategies and protocols can be further streamlined, ED staff members seem willing to adjust,” Christine L.M. Joseph, PhD, senior epidemiologist at the department of public health sciences at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and colleagues wrote.

Joseph and colleagues contacted 65 patients in the ED who visited due to an acute asthma event and 350 patients by telephone or mail selected from a patient list, according to the abstract. The mean age of the patients was 15.4 years, and the majority of patients were black (88.4%).

A total of 18.5% (n = 12) of patients in the ED group and 16.6% (n = 58) of mail and telephone patients declined to participate. The average enrollment time for patients was between 44 minutes and 67 minutes, which the researchers said included downtime. Joseph and colleagues noted that ED staff tended to be more positive about recruitment and awareness activities than research staff, according to results from a survey.

“In summary, this pilot study provided valuable information to inform future trials involving recruitment and initiation of an online intervention in the ED,” Joseph and colleagues wrote. “Phase II of this pilot will show whether the benefits of targeting youth in the ED setting are worth the hurdles encountered.” – by Jeff Craven

Disclosure: Zoratti receives funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.