An investigation into the relationships of attitude, knowledge, support, and self-efficacy on elementary school teachers' intent to manage symptomatic asthmatic children in their classroom: A rural perspective

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that affects over five million children each year, and can impact a child's school performance in many ways. It accounts for 20 million lost school days each year. For these reasons, it is paramount that management of symptoms be expedited in a timely and appropriate manner. Many rural schools have school nurses available on a part-time basis, or no school nurse at all. Teachers, now more than ever, are being called upon to provide the initial management for these asthmatic children.; The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among the predictor variables of knowledge, attitude, support, and self-efficacy on rural elementary school teachers' intent to manage symptomatic asthmatic children in their classroom. Ajzen's (1988) Theory of Planned Behavior provided the theoretical underpinnings for this research.; A convenience sample of 212 rural elementary school teachers participated in this study. In addition to demographic information, each participant completed the Teacher's Knowledge About Asthma Questionnaire, the Asthma Attitude Questionnaire, the Teacher Asthma Management Self-efficacy Questionnaire, the Asthma Support Questionnaire and the Measurement of Intent to Manage Asthma Questionnaire.; There were significant relationships between the variables of support and intent to manage asthma, support and self-efficacy, and attitude and self-efficacy. Multiple regression showed that support was the strongest predictor for intent to manage the symptomatic asthmatic child. These findings provided some support for the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1988). In addition, these findings provide an understanding of the important piece support plays in teachers' intent to manage asthmatic children. Recommendations for future studies include conducting a longitudinal study that investigates the degree of intent versus the actual behavior of managing these children. In addition, qualitative studies that explore why teachers are not knowledgeable about asthma would provide more insight into identifying educational practices that may be more effective in improving teacher's knowledge.