Original Articles: Asthma Lower Airway DiseasesAsthmatic patients’ poor awareness of inadequate disease control: a pharmacy-based survey
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
The level of asthma control remains inadequate for most patients in Western countries despite the emergence of new effective controller therapies. 1, 2 In addition, studies 3, 4 have reported that many patients fail to notice inadequate control of their disease. A pharmacy-based observational study 5 was conducted in 2004 among asthmatic patients. Asthma control was measured using the Asthma Control Test, 6 and patients described how they perceived their own disease control. A substantial
Study Design and Study Population
The methods of the study have already been described. 5 Briefly, an observational study was conducted in 348 French community pharmacies between November 2003 and June 2004. Community pharmacists invited asthmatic patients aged 18 to 50 years who were regular users of the pharmacy to participate in the study. To be eligible, patients were required to have with them a prescription for an antiasthma medication (R03, Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification). In case of refusal, the next
Patient Characteristics
The main characteristics of the patients have already been described. 5 Briefly, most of the 1,559 patients were women (56%), and the mean age was 36 years. More than 30% of the patients were smokers. Most patients were dispensed fixed combinations of long-acting β-agonists (LABAs) and inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) before study inclusion, alone (26%) or associated with another controller (33%). Approximately 15% of the patients received LABAs and ICSs as 2 separate medications, whereas 8% were
DISCUSSION
This is one of the few observational studies investigating patients’ difficulty perceiving inadequate asthma control. Most patients with inadequate asthma control did not perceive this, even when highly symptomatic. This poor perception of asthma control was not specific to any dimension of control. In addition, the failure to identify inadequate control did not markedly vary with personal characteristics, except for age and smoking status. Last, no substantial effect of asthma management was
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the pharmacists and patients who agreed to participate in this study.
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This study was supported in part by a nonconditional grant from GlaxoSmithKline France.