Factors associated with poor asthma control among asthmatic patient visiting emergency department

Abstract

Introduction: Bronchial asthma is a common chronic disease that affects people of all ages. Insufficient asthma control may cause frequent emergency department (ED) visit by patients who seek crisis management of their asthma.

Objectives: This study aims to identify the factors associated with poor asthma control.

Methods: We enrolled 450 participants who visited (ED) for asthma management. Besides assessing the asthma severity classification, we assess each participant for asthma control over the months preceding ED visit using Asthma Control Test score. We employed an independent t-test and ANOVA to assess if the differences in asthma control scores by demographic and clinical characteristics are statistically significant. The dependence of asthma control scores on demographic and clinical characteristics had been investigated with stepwise regression model.

Results: There are differences in asthma control scores by the number of ED visits and severity of asthma classification (P values = 0.001). It was found that participant age, multiple ED visits, severe persistent, moderate persistent, mild persistent, received education about asthma medication and received education about asthma disease were greatly affected asthma control scores. For instance, the asthma control is predicted to decrease by 10.688 when participant had severe persistent asthma. Similarly, the asthma control is predicted to decrease by 5.647 when the participant had moderate persistent asthma.

Conclusions: This study identified many factors that may explain insufficient asthma control.

Keywords: asthma; asthma control test; bronchial asthma; emergency.