Teen Asthma Project

Twenty-three items cover problems identified as being most important and troublesome in children's everyday lives due to asthma. This scale is effective in evaluating and discriminating because of its high sensitivity to changes in asthma status within and between individuals with varying severity of asthma. Respondents are asked to recall impairments experienced during the previous week. The scale consists of three subdomains including symptoms (10 items), emotional function (8 items) and activity limitation (5 items). Each item was measured on a 7-point scale; 1 indicates maximum impairment, and 7 indicates no impairment. Higher total scores indicate better levels of functioning. Total scores were computed by summing responses from all items (range:24-161)

This measure assesses the frequencies of the limitation of daily activity, asthma symptoms (daytime and nighttime) and use of rescue medication in the past 4 weeks on a 5-point scale (0-4). Total summed scores were computed (range: 4-16). Higher total scores indicate better controlled asthma.

This 14-item scale was developed to measure the child's confidence in attack prevention (e.g., learn asthma self-management skills, correct use of medication) and attack management (e.g., control symptoms, decide which medication to use). Total summed scores were computed (range: 21-70). Higher total scores indicate greater degree of self-efficacy.

This 29-item scale was developed to assess perception of barriers and to predict risk for poor self-management in adolescents with chronic illness. This scale categorizes barriers based on internal processes (e.g., cognitive skills, denial, pessimistic thinking) and contextual forces (e.g., illness-related factors, peer/family influences). Total summed scores were computed (range: 28-91). Higher scores indicate the high levels of perceived barriers to self-management.

This 13-item scale was designed to assess children's attitude toward their health condition. The scale includes questions such as "how good or bad do you feel it is that you have ___?" and, "how often do you feel that your ___ is your fault?" Respondents answer each question on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1-5). Total summed scores (range: 25-65) was constructed to reflect respondents' overall attitudes. Higher scores indicated positive attitudes.

This 30-item instrument was developed to measure children's knowledge on triggers and symptom identifications, and asthma management procedures (i.e., what to do and how to do it) in a true/false format. Total scores (range: 14-30) were computed by summing the number of items correctly answered. The higher scores indicate greater knowledge levels.

Maximal amount of air one can forcefully exhale in one second. It is then converted to a percentage of normal. Range: 55-124 for the current sample.

Participants report the following information for the prior 3-month period; their emergency department visits for asthma; hospitalization for asthma; urgent office visit for worsening asthma; routine office visit; specialist visit. A cumulative number of events were computed by adding # of visits and # of days (for hospitalization) occurred in the past 3 months .