Lay‐led and peer support interventions to help adolescents adhere to their asthma treatment
Citation: Kew KM, Carr R, Crossingham I. Lay‐led and peer support interventions for adolescents with asthma. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2017;(4):CD012331
What is this? People with asthma may have an increased risk of complications with COVID-19 infection. Existing research on ways to help them adhere to their treatment regimen and self-manage their condition might lower these risks.
In this Cochrane review, the authors searched for randomised trials of lay-led and peer support interventions for adolescents with asthma. They did not restrict their searches by date or language of publication and did the search in November 2016. They included five studies (total: 1146 participants, aged 11-17 years) and had low confidence in the findings because of the risk of bias in the studies. They also identified one additional ongoing study and one article that is awaiting assessment.
What works: There was weak evidence to suggest that lay-led and peer support interventions lead to small improvements in the asthma-related quality of life of adolescents with asthma.
What doesn’t work: Nothing noted.
What’s uncertain: The most appropriate target populations for lay-led and peer support interventions and the attributes of a successful programme are uncertain.
The effects of lay-led and peer support interventions for adolescents are uncertain for asthma control, exacerbations and medication adherence.
It is uncertain whether routine use of lay‐led or peer support programmes is beneficial for adolescents receiving asthma care.