Elsevier

Respiratory Medicine

Volume 106, Issue 2, February 2012, Pages 205-214
Respiratory Medicine

Real-life prospective study on asthma control in Italy: Cross-sectional phase results

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2011.10.001Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

Summary

Objectives

To estimate the prevalence of partly controlled and uncontrolled asthmatic patients, to evaluate quality of life and healthcare resource consumption.

Methods

Cross-sectional phase followed by a 12-month prospective phase. Asthma Control Test and the EQ-5D were used.

Results

2853 adult patients recruited in 56 Hospital Respiratory Units in Italy were evaluated: 64.4% had controlled asthma, 15.8% partly controlled asthma and 19.8% were uncontrolled. The mean (SD) EQ-5D score was 0.86 (0.17) in controlled, 0.75 (0.20) in partly controlled and 0.69 (0.23) in uncontrolled patients (p < 0.001 between groups). The number of patients requiring hospitalization or emergency room visits was lower in controlled (1.8% and 1.6%, respectively) than in partly controlled (5.1% and 11.5%) and uncontrolled (6.4% and 18.6%). A combination of an inhaled corticosteroid and a long-acting beta-2 agonist was the reported therapy by 56.0% of patients, with the rate of controlled asthma and improved quality of life being higher in patients on extrafine beclomethasone/formoterol compared to budesonide/formoterol (p < 0.05) and fluticasone/salmeterol (p < 0.05 for quality of life).

Conclusions

Asthma control is achieved in a good proportion of Italian patients. Differences may be detected in a real-life setting in favor of extrafine beclomethasone/formoterol combination.

Keywords

Observational study
Combination therapy
Real life
Asthma control
Patient reported outcomes

Cited by (0)