Abstract
Children with chronic asthma who fail outpatient management may benefit from a long-term hospitalization at a residential treatment center. Criteria for determining effectiveness of residential care include comparison of prehospitalization and posthospitalization emergency room visits, acute care admissions, and school attendance. Comparison of the school records can be an indirect indicator of the impact that residential care has on a child's health status. This study examines the attendance from the school year before and that after admission at Children's Rehabilitation Hospital (CRH). Those children who completed the asthma program had an overall increase in attendance of 17.7%. Those who left prematurely had no change in attendance. These results suggest that successful completion of the CRH asthma program can positively modify the impact of chronic asthma on school attendance.
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