Variables associated with asthma control among adult patients

Abstract

Objective: Asthma is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases with a substantial impact on the health status of affected patients. Further research is necessary to identify factors contributing to poor asthma control. The current study aimed to investigate the factors associated with poor asthma control among adult asthmatic patients.

Methods: In this case-control study, the Asthma Control Test (ACT) was translated into Arabic and distributed to adults with asthma attending two hospitals in Jordan to evaluate the degree of asthma control. The following variables were collected for each patient: sociodemographic information, comorbidities, appropriate use of inhaler technique, spirometric measurements, and medications use. Binary regression was used to evaluate factors associated with asthma control.

Results: A total of 314 participants with a mean age of 51.47 years (±16.37) completed the study. ACT score had a mean of 16.68 (±4.86). The majority of asthmatic patients had insufficiently controlled asthma (64.6%). Binary regression results showed that previous respiratory infection history (p = 0.014, OR = 0.473 (95%CI 0.261–0.857)), higher exposure to irritants (p = 0.010, OR = 0.747 (95%CI 0.598–0.933)) decreased the odds of being in the controlled asthma group. Patients receiving inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) had higher odds of being in the controlled asthma group (p = 0.039, OR = 2.372 (95%CI 1.043–5.392)).

Conclusions: The majority of asthma patients had insufficiently managed disease. The main factors that contributed to poor asthma control were respiratory infection history, increased exposure to asthma symptoms triggers, and ICS nonuse.

Keywords:

• Asthma
• ACT
• inhaler technique
• asthma control test
• Jordan

Availability of data and materials

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is available in the Zenodo repository, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6894124.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, grant number 22/23/2019–2020.