Chest
Clinical Investigations: AsthmaSelf-Management, Autonomy, and Quality of Life in Asthma
Section snippets
Subjects
Two groups of adult asthmatic subjects were studied. The first group comprised a community sample of 135 asthmatics who were recruited from retail pharmacies when they purchased inhaled albuterol for treatment of asthma. These subjects participated in an earlier study7 and were contacted by mail to participate in the current study. The second group of 38 asthmatics were contacted 8 weeks following hospital admission for acute asthma as part of an audit of asthma care at the John Hunter Hospital.
Results
Completed questionnaires were returned by 85 of the 133 subjects in the community group (response rate, 64%) and 38 the 58 patients who were contacted 8 to 12 weeks after hospital discharge for acute severe asthma (response rate, 65%).
Subjects in the community group reported mild quality of life impairment due to asthma in each of the four domains and in overall quality of life (Table 1). There was significantly greater quality of life impairment in the group who had recently been hospitalized.
DISCUSSION
This study was performed to measure patients’ wishes for autonomy in asthma, specifically focusing on patient preferences for information about the condition and for decision making during an asthma exacerbation. We also sought to measure quality of life in adults with asthma and relate this to self-management autonomy. The results show that there is mild to moderate quality of life impairment in ambulatory patients with asthma. Subjects expressed strong preferences for information about their
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Gaye Sheather for her secretarial assistance. The Year 2 Population Medicine Group 91C of the Faculty of Medicine, Newcastle University, consisted of Y. Antill, J. Broughton, J. Dowling, L. Grinham, E. Jordan, M. Newton, J. Sullivan, C. Spooner, and A. Watts.
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Supported in part by a student scholarship from the Asthma Foundation of NSW.
revision accepted August 12.