Background: Studies have shown that asthma severity is easily under-estimated and as a result, patients may be under-treated with reduced asthma control.
Objective: This study, performed in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), investigates asthma control in patients treated as intermittent asthmatics (short-acting beta agonist (SABA) alone), or persistent asthmatics (additional inhaled cortico-steroid (ICS), no other medication).
Methods: Patients (0-45 years) diagnosed with asthma between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2001 taking > or =2 scripts for SABA (SABA only group) or > or =3 scripts for ICS (ICS group) in the first six months following diagnosis were selected. Factors associated with drug prescriptions were assessed.
Results: SABA script rates were 3.6 and 5.1 per year in the SABA and ICS group respectively, i.e. >1 dose/day. 10.5% of SABA group and 13.4% of ICS group used oral steroids. Within the SABA group, 37% were stepped up to ICS, the time to first ICS script being significantly associated with prior hospitalization (RR 2.26, CI 1.65-3.10) and atopy (RR 1.47, CI 1.33-1.63). A higher rate of oral steroid use was significantly associated with using ICS, being female, adult and smoking. Smokers and atopic individuals had increased risk of obtaining an earlier script for oral steroid (RR 1.32, CI 1.10-1.59 and RR 1.28, CI 1.10-1.49, respectively).
Conclusions: Asthma control was sub-optimal in a substantial proportion of patients using relatively high doses of SABA, or SABA and ICS from the outset of asthma treatment in general practice. Being female, atopic, a smoker and prior hospitalization were all associated with lack of asthma control and could guide physicians in treatment prescribing.