DIVA study

• Your child may experience an improvement in their asthma symptoms, simply by participating in this study that will be providing regular medical and nursing care.
• Your child may receive a Vitamin D supplement that is not currently available on the market and that the investigators believe could be beneficial for lung health, and immune system.
• Your child will be closely monitored by an Asthma specialist
• You may be helping in discovering a potential alternative to improve asthma management.
• Your travel and parking costs will be reimbursed for each research visit.
• Your child will be helping to advance medical research aimed at improving the health of young kids with asthma.

The Department of Pediatrics is currently recruiting young children for a large study testing whether vitamin D supplements can reduce the severity of asthma flare-ups triggered by colds.

Is...

• Is your child aged 1 to 5 years of age?
• Has your child been diagnosed with asthma or bronchospasm?
• Has your child received steroid by month (solution or syrup) for asthma during his current hospital visit or in the last 12 months?
• Has the child had ≥ 4 colds in the past 12 months?
• Do the asthma flare-ups appear to be mainly triggered by colds?

If your child fits all 5 criteria, he/she may be eligible to be part of a large Canadian study testing the effect of vitamin D in preschoolers with asthma.

This study will enroll children annually from 2018 to 2024.

Goal

• Evaluate if vitamin D supplementation can reduce the severity of asthma attacks in children between 1 and 5 years old.

Duration

• 7 months

Progress

Clinic VISIT 1 (Day0)

Duration**: about 90-150 minutes

• Nasal swab collection
• Urine and blood samples collection
• Oral administration (by mouth) of a 2 mL dose of liquid Vitamin D or placebo
• Questionnaires on food intake and sun exposure
• Questionnaire on colds and asthma attacks
• Measurement of lung function with oscillometry test, if applicable

Clinic VISIT 2* (3 ½ months)

Duration**: about 90-150 minutes

• Nasal swab collection
• Urine samples collection
• Oral administration (by mouth) of a 2 mL dose of liquid Vitamin D or placebo
• Questionnaire sur l’absentéisme au travail et dépenses reliées aux crises d’asthme de votre enfant
• Questionnaires on food intake and sun exposure
• Questionnaire on colds and asthma attacks
• Measurement of lung function with oscillometry test, if applicable

Clinic VISIT 3* (7 months)

Duration**: about 90 minutes

• Urine and blood samples collection
• Questionnaire sur l’absentéisme au travail et dépenses reliées aux crises d’asthme de votre enfant
• Questionnaires on food intake and sun exposure
• Questionnaire on colds and asthma attacks
• Measurement of lung function with oscillometry test, if applicable

*  Or Remote visit by videoconferencing, if applicable
** Excluding the medical visit duration

Between hospital visits

DAILY administration of 1 mL of vitamin D or placebo by parents

Urine sample collection at home (10 days after Visit 1 and after Visit 2)
If the urine test is abnormal:  Home visit for blood sample by medical technologist/nurse or by parents with a special kit. Of note, a 2^nd urine collection might be repeated first.

Telephone follow-ups by the research nurse

• 7 days after Visits 1 and 2
• Once a month between visits

In case of asthma attack or cold (at home)

• Perform the nasal swab sample on day 2 (or 3 or 4) of each episode
• Fill out the questionnaires (online or on paper)
  • Symptoms diary every day throughout the episode
  • Quality-of-life questionnaire for the parent at the end of the episode
  • Summary of cold or asthma flare-up at the end of the episode

• Download the DIVA Study flowchart

Instructions on questionnaires to be completed during a child's cold and asthma flare-up.

TASSO-SST

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