Attitudes to asthma, medications and self-management
| Reliever-only, urgent healthcare (n=242)* | Reliever-only, no urgent healthcare (n=796) | Reliever-only, urgent/no urgent healthcare p value | Preventer users, urgent healthcare (n=524)# | Urgent healthcare, reliever-only vs preventer p value | |
| Please rate your level of knowledge about asthma, mean (SD) [one very low to seven very high] | 4.89 (1.27) | 4.77 (1.32) | 0.3274 | 5.17 (1.29) | 0.0005 |
| Please rate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements about your asthma, mean (SD) [one strongly disagree to seven strongly agree] | |||||
| I am happy with how I currently manage my asthma | 5.29 (1.69) | 6.00 (1.26) | <0.0001 | 5.53 (1.51) | 0.0688 |
| The treatments for asthma are very effective | 5.16 (1.52) | 5.53 (1.27) | 0.0022 | 5.33 (1.42) | 0.172 |
| I am on the lookout for a better way to manage my asthma | 4.26 (1.92) | 3.36 (1.95) | <0.0001 | 4.47 (1.94) | 0.2924 |
| I try to ignore my asthma | 3.68 (1.99) | 3.17 (1.85) | <0.0001 | 2.98 (1.88) | <0.0001 |
| If I don’t have symptoms, I don’t have asthma | 3.85 (2.09) | 3.53 (1.95) | 0.0041 | 2.92 (1.96) | <0.0001 |
| I think I will always have asthma | 5.10 (1.84) | 4.86 (1.76) | 0.0666 | 5.54 (1.54) | 0.0008 |
| I expect a cure for my asthma someday | 4.64 (1.79) | 4.22 (1.77) | 0.0007 | 4.23 (1.86) | 0.0081 |
| I am confident I know my asthma well enough to intervene early to try and prevent worsening symptoms | 5.36 (1.61) | 5.91 (1.25) | 0.0001 | 5.46 (1.46) | 0.8437 |
| I am more likely to manage my asthma myself rather than visit my GP or specialist when my symptoms worsen | 4.75 (1.85) | 4.97 (1.81) | 0.1326 | 3.88 (2.0) | <0.0001 |
| Despite taking my medication as my doctor tells me to, I still have a fear of having a serious asthma attack | 3.95 (1.95) | 2.79 (1.75) | <0.0001 | 3.78 (1.89) | 0.6543 |
| People don’t realise how serious asthma is | 5.43 (1.56) | 5.47 (1.47) | 0.6162 | 6.01 (1.26) | <0.0001 |
| In general, during the last 4 weeks, how often did you feel frustrated as a result of your asthma? [seven response options] | <0.0001 | 0.1034 | |||
| ‘None’ or ‘hardly any of the time’ | 108 (44.5%) | 581 (72.9%) | 212 (40.5%) | ||
| ‘A little of the time’ or ‘Some of the time’ | 101 (42.0%) | 195 (24.6%) | 220 (42.1%) | ||
| ‘A good bit of the time’, ‘most of the time’ or ‘all of the time’ | 33 (13.5%) | 20 (2.6%) | 92 (17.5%) | ||
| Which of the following best describes you? | <0.0001 | 0.0044 | |||
| I rarely think about my asthma | 79 (32.9%) | 427 (53.7%) | 119 (22.8%) | ||
| I sometimes think about my asthma | 120 (49.7%) | 307 (38.6%) | 264 (50.4%) | ||
| I often think about my asthma | 32 (13.4%) | 57 (7.2%) | 107 (20.5%) | ||
| I constantly think about my asthma | 10 (4.0%) | 4 (0.6%) | 33 (6.3%) | ||
| What are your personal goals in relation to living with your asthma? (multiple responses permitted) | |||||
| To keep my asthma under control | 158 (65.4%) | 423 (53.1%) | 0.0017 | 411 (78.4%) | 0.0003 |
| To discover better treatment options | 90 (37.2%) | 109 (13.7%) | <0.0001 | 189 (36.0%) | 0.8694 |
| To be healthy | 151 (62.6%) | 465 (58.4%) | 0.547 | 370 (70.5%) | 0.0379 |
| To minimise the medication I take | 85 (35.3%) | 266 (33.5%) | 0.716 | 252 (48.1%) | 0.002 |
| I have no personal goals related to living with asthma | 17 (6.9%) | 175 (22.0%) | <0.0001 | 53 (10.1%) | 0.4945 |
*23.3% of the reliever-only population.
# 32.1% of those also using preventer.