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Objective: To assess whether information about asthma acquired by individual teachers, following attendance at an inservice seminar, would be communicated to other school staff, and whether policies about asthma management would be subsequently developed in schools., Methodology: A telephone interview was conducted of 50 primary school teachers in the Hunter Region who were selected randomly from those who had represented their school at an inservice seminar about asthma., Results: All 48 respondents had provided feedback to their colleagues, mostly at a staff meeting. After the seminar the number of schools with a written policy about the management of asthma had increased from 1 to 20. Initially the school's first aid kits contained a bronchodilator inhaler in 25 schools (increasing to 43 after the seminar), a spacer device in six schools (increasing to 47) and written guidelines for management of an asthma attack in seven schools (increasing to 32). Teachers from four schools indicated that all school staff knew how to recognize an acute attack prior to the seminar compared with 22 schools afterwards. Before the seminar 18 schools asked parents to supply written instructions for the management of their children at school but this increased to 44 after the seminar., Conclusions: A programme of one-off seminars attended by one teacher from each primary school resulted in large increases in the proportion of schools with appropriate policies for the management of asthma in the school environment.

Objective: To assess whether poor parental knowledge about asthma was a risk factor for readmission of their children to hospital., Methodology: Parents of children who were admitted to the paediatric facility at Newcastle Mater and John Hunter Hospitals were administered a previously validated asthma knowledge questionnaire with a maximum possible score of 31., Results: The mean parental knowledge scores for three groups of children were determined: those with a previous diagnosis of asthma being readmitted to hospital (170 children, mean score 18.3); those with a previous diagnosis of asthma being admitted for the first time (114 children, mean score 17.2); and children being admitted with their first attack of asthma (65 children, mean score 15.6). There was a significant difference in parental asthma knowledge between the first and third group (P < 0.001) but not between the first and second group. A linear regression model with knowledge score as an outcome found that increased knowledge was associated with previously diagnosed asthma, higher parental occupation and no smoker in the home., Conclusions: Knowledge was poor in all groups. Readmission rate was related to the severity of the child's asthma.

Teachers and support staff are often called upon to manage asthma at school but may have little knowledge and understanding of the condition. The aim of this study was to determine whether a short seminar would improve knowledge in non-health professionals. Seventy school staff attended one of five 2 h seminars presented by an asthma educator. Participants completed the Newcastle Asthma Knowledge Questionnaire (AKQ) before, and 2 months after, the seminar. The mean initial score (maximum possible 31) was 16.4 (range 4-26), increasing to 23 (range 13-29, P = 0.0001). There was a large increase in knowledge about symptoms, pathophysiology, preventive medications and side effects of medications. Initially almost all of the participants had deficiencies in knowledge about reliever medications and the management of exercise-induced asthma. After the seminar, knowledge in these areas was still poor, with only one-third of the participants answering them correctly. The results have been used to modify the content of the 2 h seminar with increased emphasis on those areas in which deficiencies in knowledge were demonstrated. No data are available yet as to whether this improved knowledge has improved management.

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between headache and asthma, bronchodilators and atopy in school children. A cross-sectional survey of all primary school children was conducted in two towns near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia; one in the vicinity of two coal-fired power stations, the other free of outdoor industrial air pollution. The main outcome measures were frequent headache, wheezing, bronchial reactivity, use of bronchodilators and atopy. Eight hundred and fifty-one primary school children aged 5-12 years participated (92% response rate). Twenty-three per cent of the children were reported to have had a history of frequent headache. Crude odds ratios indicated that the odds of frequent headache was significantly higher in children with asthma and atopy and where there was a smoker in the home, but that there was no association between frequent headache and use of bronchodilators or the sex of the child or socio-economic status measured as father's occupation. Stepwise logistic regression with frequent headache as the outcome of interest showed that, after adjusting for age and smoking in the home, the odds ratio for asthma (defined as current wheeze) was 3.24 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.19-4.77). The similarly adjusted odds ratio for asthma defined as bronchial hyperreactivity (BHR) was 1.60 (95% CI 1.09-2.37). Atopy was not statistically significantly associated with headache for either model. Asthma (defined as wheeze or BHR) is an independent risk factor for frequent headache. The relationship between headache and asthma is an association with bronchial hyperresponsiveness rather than atopy.