FRIDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Asthma patients who feel more in control of their asthma have better health and quality of life and are less likely to visit the emergency department or be hospitalized for asthma, according to study findings published in the November issue of Chest.
Mark D. Eisner, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues conducted telephone interviews with 865 patients who had been hospitalized for asthma. The interview included the Perceived Control of Asthma Questionnaire. They then assessed the number of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for asthma for a median of 1.9 years.
The researchers found that patients with greater perceived control were in better physical health, had less severe asthma, and had better asthma-related quality of life. Better perceived control was associated with a significantly lower risk of visiting the emergency department (hazard ratio, 0.92) and being hospitalized for asthma (HR, 0.84).
"Greater perceived control is associated with improved asthma-related health status as well as with a decreased prospective risk of severe asthma attacks resulting in emergency health care utilization," Eisner and colleagues conclude. "This difference does not appear to be mediated by changes in preventive care or asthma self-management practices."
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