Asthma & Breath Mastery LHS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Asthma & Breath Mastery: Developing a Learning Health System (LHS) and Trials within Cohorts (TwiCs) platform
IRAS ID
356699
Contact name
Martin Wildman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
People referred to a hospital asthma service have persistent breathlessness despite treatment in primary care. Being short of breath is frightening and negatively impacts quality of life. We are running a research study (Asthma & Breath Mastery Learning Health System) to understand the causes of this breathlessness and how best to help people living with breathlessness to master it.
Typically, a healthcare professional (e.g. doctor) will have attributed the breathlessness to a medical condition called asthma. People might be given asthma drugs (treatments) to help improve their symptoms. However, for some people, these treatments do not make their symptoms any better. Some people also have breathlessness that is worse than expected given their clinical markers of asthma (e.g. blood results). This suggests there may be other factors causing their breathlessness.
One reason why people might have breathlessness that does not improve with asthma treatment is because the breathlessness is not entirely caused by asthma. Causes of breathlessness other than asthma may include breathing pattern changes, increased alarm symptoms associated with breath awareness, deconditioning, or other health conditions.
We are developing a learning health system to collect data to measure success of the Sheffield adult severe asthma service in helping people to master their breathlessness. We will use patient medical records to look at things like asthma treatments prescribed and symptoms of breathlessness. We will also ask people to complete questionnaires about their asthma/breathlessness, and physical and mental health, at different time points throughout the study. We want to develop and ultimately test an approach, using the learning health system, that helps people to master their breathlessness, whatever its cause.
People within the asthma service will be given the option to contribute their health data to future research studies. This could result in being offered new treatments or interventions. The data may be used as part of normal care and lead to changes in how the asthma team supports people living with breathlessness.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/NE/0130
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jul 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion