Pediatric Asthma

Status asthmaticus is a condition that affects a significant percentage of the population who have asthma. A common reason for patients, especially pediatric patients, to visit the emergency department are asthma exacerbations and nearly 500,000 of these patients require ICU admission per year (Miller et al., 2015). Asthma exacerbations require quick and vigilant treatment interventions from nurses and the health care team. The first line of treatment consist of administering a bronchodilator and systemic corticosteroids as based on evidenced-based asthma guidelines. This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of Miller’s, Breslin’s, Pineda’s, Fox’s (2015) research article, which aims to improve treatment time and adherence to an evidenced-based …show more content…
This was one of the “strengths” of the research; the authors clearly and precisely explained their purpose for conducting the study, even though there was not a section specifically dedicated to the purpose or objective, it was still easy to locate within the article. The authors formulated the hypothesis that an “evidenced-based asthma protocol would improve time to treatment and adherence to National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines for patients presenting to the emergency department with status asthmaticus” (Miller et al., 2015). In order to test this hypothesis, the authors used a nonprobability sample which consisted of 261 subjects. There was an adequate number of subjects used in the study, however, one weakness that could be