Missed opportunities to identify occupational asthma in acute secondary care

Abstract

Background: Occupational asthma (OA) accounts for one in six cases of new-onset adult asthma. Despite this it remains under-recognized in the UK. Delayed and missed diagnoses of OA lead to poor health outcomes for workers at significant cost to the UK economy. The burden of occupational aetiology on hospital admissions with asthma is not known.

Aims: To measure how frequently medical professionals consider occupational aetiology in patients presenting to secondary care with acute asthma symptoms.

Methods: We reviewed electronic records of working-age patients with asthma symptoms, presenting to three sites at a large West Midlands acute hospital NHS trust. We searched emergency department (ED) and acute medical unit (AMU) admission documents, looking specifically at documentation of employment status, job role and work effect on symptoms. We also examined the effect of using a prompt for enquiry about occupation contained within the clerking pro-forma.

Results: We searched 100 ED and 100 AMU admission documents. Employment status was established in only 20-31% of patients and none were asked about the effect of their work on current asthma symptoms. The use of a clerking pro-forma, including a prompt for occupation, increased documentation to 63% from 10 to 14% where an enhanced pro-forma was not used.

Conclusions: Enquiry into employment status and work effect in working-age patients with asthma symptoms presenting to the ED and the AMU is poor. These may be missed opportunities to identify OA. We propose medical education about high-risk exposures and the use of pro-formas including prompts about occupational exposures.