© 2005 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
Asthma consultations
Consultations for asthma: will greater patient involvement deliver better health?
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor C J Griffiths
Institute of Community Health Sciences, Barts and the London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, London E1 4NS; c.j.griffiths@qmul.ac.uk
Keywords: asthma; decision making; patients’ views
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Self-management of asthma is a complicated activity, perhaps more demanding for asthma than for any other chronic illness. People with asthma are faced with an illness whose causes and fluctuations are poorly understood (witness the pages of this journal), to be controlled with an often mysterious collection of inhalers. Our increasingly high expectations of patients’ abilities to self-care are fuelled by trials in selected populations1 and politicians with visions of reduced healthcare costs.2,3 The realities of asthma self-management are often scepticism and low uptake.4 The consultation remains the most important opportunity for helping patients to develop the ability to manage their asthma. Rightly, the consultation continues to be subject to a range of critical perspectives.
Social scientists offer a number of deficiencies that hinder success in promoting self-care: the infrequency with which doctors seek and patients air fears about medication and side effects, lack of opportunity for patient
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