Knowledge and Attitude Among Patients and Physicians on Allergic Rhinitis (KAPPA): An International Survey

Chaitanya Bhargave; Manish Verma; Rupert W Jakes; Yoshitaka Okamoto

doi:10.2147/JAA.S382441

Knowledge and Attitude Among Patients and Physicians on Allergic Rhinitis (KAPPA): An International Survey

J Asthma Allergy. 2022 Nov 14:15:1645-1664. doi: 10.2147/JAA.S382441. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Chaitanya Bhargave¹, Manish Verma², Rupert W Jakes³, Yoshitaka Okamoto⁴

Affiliations

¹ Global Medical Affairs, GSK, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
² Respiratory and Allergy, GSK, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
³ Epidemiology, GSK, London, UK.
⁴ Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University and Chiba Rosai Hospital, Chiba, Japan.

Abstract

Purpose: Our study compared knowledge of, and attitudes towards, allergic rhinitis (AR) among patients and physicians in: Brazil, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

Patients and methods: Patients with AR were recruited via probability-based sampling. Data were captured via telephone interview, personal interview, or self-administered online survey. Physicians were recruited from an online physician panel and interviewed by self-administered online survey.

Results: In total, 1436 patients and 1637 physicians were surveyed. Most patients (76.9%) reported moderate-to-severe AR, whereas physicians reported more mild (mean cases ranging from 57.0-68.2) than moderate-to-severe AR (mean cases ranging from 31.8-43.0). Overall, most physicians (85.4%) and patients (77.5%) agreed AR could be controlled with treatment. Physicians preferred prescribing oral antihistamines (OAHs) for mild AR (from 45.3% of physicians in Brazil to 73.6% of physicians in Mexico). For moderate and severe AR, more physicians preferred prescribing intranasal corticosteroids (INCSs) and OAHs for moderate and severe AR than other available treatments (from 48.5% of physicians in the UK to 69.5% of physicians in Spain). Patients preferred OAHs to INCSs for treating AR (62.0%). Patients also reported a range of comorbidities: overall, sinus infections were the most common (24.7%), and comorbid asthma was present in 12.9% of patients. Per country, Saudi Arabia had the highest proportion (53.5%) and Mexico had the lowest proportion (8.0%) of patients with comorbid asthma.

Conclusion: Patient and physician perceptions of AR mostly differed between and within countries, although there was generally agreement that AR could be controlled with treatment. Differing attitudes towards AR among patients and physicians suggests a need for improved education in and communication between these groups, with subsequent implications for optimizing disease management.

Keywords: allergic rhinitis; allergy; intranasal corticosteroids; oral antihistamines; treatment preference.

Grants and funding

GSK provided financial support for the conduct of the research (study number 210004) and preparation of the article; the study sponsor had no involvement in: study design; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; the writing of the report; or the decision to submit the article for publication. Medical writing support (in the form of manuscript development, collating author comments, assembling tables/figures, grammatical editing, and referencing) was provided by Joanna Wilson, PhD, of Ashfield MedComms (Glasgow, UK), an Inizio company, and was funded by GSK.