Understanding hospital, GP, and family factors associated with paediatric asthma re-admissions

Summary The overall aim of this project is to identify modifiable and translatable factors associated with asthma re-admissions in order to inform new models of care to keep children out of hospitals. The student will assist with data collection, analysis and exploring a specific angle of interest in more detail within this broader project.

Project Details

Asthma is the most common chronic childhood illness affecting approximately 10% of Australian children. Asthma hospitalisations are associated with serious outcomes including worse lung function, functional limitations, future admissions and increased risk of mortality. In addition, hospitalisation poses a significant burden on hospitals with asthma accounting for approximately 3% of all hospitalisations for Australian children aged 5-14 years in 2015-6. Approximately 1 in 5 children admitted to hospital for the treatment of asthma will be re-admitted within 1 year. The overall aim of this project is to identify modifiable and translatable factors associated with asthma re-admissions in order to inform new models of care to keep children out of hospitals.  The recruitment for this project is underway at 3 hospitals (The Royal Children's Hospital, The Northern Hospital and University Hospital Geelong) with a rich data set including medical record data extraction, GP survey, parent interviews, and data linkage to the Victorian Admitted Episode Dataset and the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset in order to understand health service utilisation. The student will assist with data collection, analysis and exploring a specific angle of interest in more detail within this broader project.