Asthma treatment needs:: A comparison of patients' and health care professionals' perceptions

Background: Patients' perceptions of asthma tend to differ from those of clinicians, who primarily focus on asthma control. Patients' treatment needs and preferences may not be adequately addressed. Objective: The aims of this study were as follows: to provide data on unmet treatment needs and to investigate the main finding of a qualitative study using a questionnaire study. Methods: To assess treatment needs in patients with asthma, focus groups were conducted with patients parents and clinicians. Based on these results, quantitative surveys of adult patients and parents were performed in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain. Results: The UK focus group comprised 11 patients and 8 parents; in Germany there were 10 patients and 11 parents; in Spain, there were 5 patients and 8 parents. The focus groups showed some differences between clinicians' and patients'/parents' perceptions of treatment. For patients, side effects meant long-term effects (ie, 10-20 years); for clinicians, it meant occasional local problems. The quantitative study comprised 454 participants : 310 adult patients (mean [SD] age, 37.13 [13.12] years) and 142 parents (children's mean [SD] age, 13.98 [1.37] years), plus 2 nonspecified. Some patients reported good asthma control and simultaneously reported frequent exacerbations. Most patients and parents expressed a preference for a simpler regimen using fewer drugs, and most had concerns about their treatment. Although some patients concurred with treatment guidelines, 62.2% tended to rely on reliever medication (ie, bronchodilators). Additionally, 6.9% described their asthma as very well-controlled but reported experiencing asthma symptoms 3 days per week. Finally, 1.9% of patients and 2.1% of parents reporting very well-controlled asthma also reported visiting the emergency department or calling a physician for a home visit in the previous 3 months. Conclusions: Asthma patients and parents of asthmatic children had unmet treatment needs and may interpret medical terminology differently than clinicians. Copyright (C) 2004 Excerpta Medica, Inc.