Patient Recognition, Education, and Self-Management of Asthma Attacks
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patient Recognition, Education, and Self-management of Asthma Exacerbations
IRAS ID
319771
Contact name
Tim Harrison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 4 months, 30 days
Research summary
Asthma is a highly prevalent disease affecting more than 9 million people in the United Kingdom. Asthma attacks (AA) are a common complication of asthma and cause nearly 1500 deaths per year in the UK and account for over 77,000 hospital admissions a year. Although the importance of asthma education has been emphasised in national and international guidelines, patients’ state of knowledge of asthma attacks and perspectives about education and self-management plans in the context of AA are not well elucidated.
Asthma is often inadequately controlled, and asthma-related deaths are linked to preventable factors, including not knowing when to seek help for an attack and lack of knowledge about the disease. Moreover, asthma patients may not be aware of the goals of asthma treatment and the effectiveness of treatment options; studies have shown that patients’ knowledge about a disease directly influences their disease-related behaviours, and even experts’ advice is evaluated against this knowledge.
Previous studies on this issue have mainly focused on assessing patients’ practical knowledge to manage an acute episode of asthma; many patients lack understanding about monitoring, assessment of symptoms of an attack, and medication use. Asthma patients have a poor perception of their level of asthma control and consider frequent symptoms an unavoidable sequel of asthma. They are satisfied with the level of asthma control even if they have severe persistent symptoms; hence they do not recognise a loss of control and an imminent attack. Data from The 2014 UK National Review of Asthma Deaths show that about 45% of the patients who died from an AA did not seek medical attention during their final attack.
An asthma attack is the strongest risk factor for a future one, and recurrent attacks are associated with an irreversible decline in lung function. Insufficient knowledge around asthma in terms of perception of symptom severity, the management of worsening asthma, and medication use is common, and can potentially lead to suboptimal disease control and unfavourable outcomes. Improved knowledge about AA is likely to improve disease management and control. This study aims to assess and describe patients’ state of knowledge of AA, the source and usefulness of education they have previously received, and their perceptions of AA education. Results from this qualitative work will highlight issues related to patients’ perception of AA and their knowledge and views about asthma self-management plans. This will allow an insight into patients’ understanding of AA and inform the development of a patient-focused AA management approach emphasising the acquisition of knowledge, enabling patients to manage their asthma more effectively.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
23/NS/0016
Date of REC Opinion
6 Feb 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion