© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
Written asthma action plans
Written asthma action plans
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
M R Partridge
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Charing Cross Hospital Campus, London W6 8RP, UK; m.partridge@imperial.ac.uk
More widespread use of written asthma action plans should be encouraged
Keywords: asthma; asthma action plan
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The first British guidelines for the management of asthma in adults published in 1990 clearly recommended self-management of asthma. The exact statement read: "As far as possible, patients should be trained to manage their own treatment rather than be required to consult their doctor before making changes".1 Similar advice has been repeated in subsequent revisions of the UK guidelines2–4 and in the NHLBI global strategy for asthma management and prevention.5
The evidence base for these recommendations is strong, and 36 trials comparing self-management education with usual care were reviewed for the Cochrane Library.6 This review suggested that self-management education could be associated with a reduction in hospital admissions of up to 40%, a reduction in emergency room visits of 20%, and similarly impressive reductions in unscheduled visits to the doctor, night time symptoms, and days off work or school. The authors concluded that training programmes that
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Airwaves
- Wisia Wedzicha
Thorax 2004 59: 87.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
