JenniferSpartzResearchExercise17-18AnalyzingInterviews

Research Exercise 17-18 Interviews and Analysis To gain a more in depth view into how asthma is treated and viewed by individuals as they grow, interviews were conducted. These interviews had five main focuses: history of asthma, asthma treatment, asthma and school, home environment, and asthma at RPI. Each section had a list of questions that were touched upon which contributed to the collection of asthma knowledge. The first interviewee started by saying that her dad was an EMT, therefore was always around a medical professional. Her dad was her primary source of knowledge for how to take care of her asthma for the majority of her life. It was not until high school that she started to see a specialist about asthma. While she waited that long to see a doctor specified to help with asthma, she has always had breathing problems. Some members of her family have asthma problems as well. When it came to her treatment, she stated that she had never been a part of any clinical trials, and had used albuterol and a nebulizer. In school as a child, she often carried her inhaler with her instead of giving it to the nurse and has had instances where it was needed. In her hometown, she did not often worry about ozone, just pollen levels. When playing sports she also never had an action plan in the case of an asthma attack. Once she reached Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), she found that the health center was not as helpful as she would like. Also, some buildings on campus, were clearly worse for her asthma than others, for example Rickettes was much worse than Alpha Phi. The second interviewee started to develop asthma problems in 5th grade from a problem with bronchitis; however she was not diagnosed until 9th grade when her sister started studying to become a physician. She never remembers getting literature on asthma even when she was diagnosed. Her family does not have asthma, but she has a sister with major allergies. While her family does not have asthma, many of her friends on her rugby team had issues with asthma. There were enough people on the team with asthma that the coach carried albuterol on him. The medicines that she mainly took to control her asthma were sprays not pills. She found that her asthma was exacerbated by exercise and smoke. Through sports however, she was able to learn how to breathe correctly and was able to apply that knowledge whenever she believed an asthma attack may have been about to start. In her hometown, there were factories and her house had interstates near it, but most of the land around her was farmland. She admitted that the pesticides never really bothered her. She never really bothered to keep track of environmental hazards like ozone and pollen, instead she just accepted the air quality as it was. So far, her experiences at RPI with asthma have been pretty much non-existent. The third interviewee developed asthma as a baby due to bronchitis. As she grew, her asthma attacks decreased until middle school where pneumonia brought it back. Her aunt, cousins (who both lived in the same area as she did), and next door neighbor all had asthma as well. To treat her asthma, she used an inhaler and nebulizer when she was younger. She only used the medications when she felt sick or as the seasons changed. Another asthma trigger was running. Her asthma was worse when she was around smokers. She sometimes missed school due to breathing problems and even while in school she carried one inhaler with her and the nurse had another one. When she played sports, her coach was not aware that she had asthma. She felt that the air quality in her hometown was better than that of this city she was just outside of. She rarely looked at the air quality index. She felt that she would know if the humidity or air changes would be a problem. Since the time she has come to RPI, she has not had many problems with asthma and has not had to go to the health center. Through these interviews, several patterns have emerged. One of which is the fact that all three have had asthma for a while, and none remember ever getting literature about it. This is a potential problem, as it would make sense that the more someone knows and understands a subject, the more prepared he or she is to face it. While when the girls were young it would make sense that their parents were the ones to receive literature, once the girls got older and began to understand what was really going on, it would make sense to ensure that they are fully informed so that they could be prepared to take care of themselves if the need presented itself. Another thing to note is that all three live in towns with other asthmatics. While these asthmatics may not go to their school, they are impacted by the same air as each of the girls. This further supports the idea that poor air quality exacerbates asthma. It also supports the idea that the poor air quality does not have to be directly in the same vicinity; it can travel to other areas. The next common idea is that none of the girls swim as a supplementary treatment. While swimming has seemed to be a good idea in the past to help with asthma, these girls have not thought it helped enough for it to be considered a treatment. One of the girls even said that the water pressure put too much pressure on her lungs for it to be helpful. There was also a pattern that appeared in the school environment. All three were supposed to give their inhalers to the school nurse, but when they felt they needed it, they all carried it on them. This is notable since most schools today do not allow students to carry drugs with them, but there are instances where this rule is ignored. In the case of asthma, it would not make sense for the student’s inhaler to be in a place that is unreachable in the time of an emergency. Therefore, it is understandable that all three girls attempted to be prepared for the worst just in case. One final pattern that was seen from just these three, was that air quality indices are not used or considered as commonly as they probably should be. The only index used was the pollen count. None of the girls were overly concerned about ground level ozone which has been proven to have a huge impact on asthma. This should be cause for speculation about whether these indices are publicized enough or are just too hard to find to be useful to the average asthmatic.