Belief and adherence to COVID 19-lockdown restrictions in patients with asthma versus other chronic diseases: results from a cross-sectional survey nested in the ComPaRe e-cohort, in France

Abstract

Background

Asthma patients are under-represented among patients with COVID-19. Their behavior during lockdown and associated restrictions is unknown, as well as whether it was influenced by coexistent cardiovascular conditions.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional survey in May 2020, in France, nested in ComPaRe, an e-cohort of adults with chronic diseases. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 10,859 people; 3701 fully completed questionnaires. The prevalence of self-reported asthma was 7%. Patients were classified in 4 categories: asthma with (n = 106) or without (n = 149) cardiovascular disease and other diseases with (n = 1186) or without (n = 2260) cardiovascular disease.

Result

Adherence to movement restrictions during the lockdown was very strong: 89% of participants reported a frequency of outings of “less than once per week” and “once or twice per week” for errands and no family-related outings during the lockdown. This proportion and frequency of outings were similar whatever the chronic disease (p = 0.122). Most patients (96%) reported a high feeling of security during the lockdown, but 95% felt anxious or depressed, with no difference by disease. As compared with patients with controlled asthma, those with uncontrolled asthma more frequently reported complaints related to deteriorated medical follow-up, waived care, anxiety or depression.

Conclusions

Behaviors during the lockdown in France among the asthma population did not differ from patients with other chronic diseases in this cohort, which strengthens hypotheses for specific disease-related susceptibility to explain the low representation of asthmatics among COVID-19 cases. Special attention should be paid to the subgroup of patients with uncontrolled asthma during lockdowns.

Acknowledgements

We thank Laura Smales (BioMedEditing) for help in English editing and Isabelle Plane for her help in the survey development.

Declarations of interest

FC, CoT, VTT, CC: none

CaT: Dr. Taillé reports grants and personal fees from AstraZeneca, grants and personal fees from Novartis, grants and personal fees from Sanofi, grants and personal fees from GSK, outside the submitted work.

Additional information

Funding

No funding source.