Abstract
Introduction:
Despite availability of effective asthma, outcomes remain suboptimal. The issue of whether different practices achieve different results in terms of asthma control is currently unknown although much discussed.
Aims and objectives:
To evaluate variation in asthma control using patient reported outcomes and routine practice recorded data. Subjects and method: Practices participating in the ACCT initiative evaluated asthma control using the asthma control questionnaire (ACQ) and other patient reported outcomes for adults prescribed preventative asthma therapy. Routine anonymous data was also extracted from practice computer systems including current asthma treatment and recorded exacerbations. Practices with full data on more than 30 adult patients only were included in this analysis. Proportions with evidence of poor asthma control using practice reported oral steroid usage and high ACQ scores (>1.5) are reported [1].
Results:
Data from 36 practices met the study criteria. Median practice proportion of patients receiving at least one course of oral steroids was 14.2% (IQR 7.3% to 19.6%) and median proportion with an ACQ score of >1.5 was 36.5% (IQR 27.0% to 48.1%). The absolute range for oral steroids from 0% to 37.8% of patients and for high ACQ score from 12.3% to 78.3%.
Conclusions:
This data suggests vast variation exists between practices in terms of achieved asthma control as evidenced by oral steroid usage and high ACQ scores.
Conflict of interest and funding
The ACCT programme is supported by an unrestricted educational grant by Altana pharma.
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Price, D., Horne, R., Ryan, D. et al. ABS74: Large variations in asthma control between UK general practices participating in the asthma control, concordance and tolerance (ACCT) Initiative. Prim Care Respir J 15, 206 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcrj.2006.04.167
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcrj.2006.04.167