Effects of Tailored Asthma Education on Improving Adult Asthma Self-Management in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia

Background: Asthma is a chronic airway disease characterized by bronchoconstriction and inflammation and leads to symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) updated the asthma guideline in 2019, now recommending regular or as-needed inhaled corticosteroid-containing treatment to control symptoms. Unfortunately, patients and even healthcare practitioners are still not knowledgeable about the recent change by GINA. Hence, there is an overreliance on short-acting beta-agonists and underuse of inhaled corticosteroid (ICS)-containing inhalers. There is also poor inhaler technique in 70-80% of patients. Two research questions were addressed. The first research question is: how does tailored asthma education affect adult participants’ knowledge about asthma? The second research question is how does tailored asthma education affect participants’ cognitive and psychomotor skills required in asthma self-management? Therefore, this study aimed to report the impact of tailored asthma education on asthma knowledge and skills. Methods: This study was a pilot study with 6 participants aged 18-70 y, recruited between June and October 2023 in response to the recruitment flyer, and who attended one tailored asthma education session. Participants’ asthma knowledge was assessed using the Asthma Self-Management Knowledge Adult Questionnaire, and a standard inhaler checklist with the teach-back method was used to assess participants’ cognitive and psychomotor skills. The PI obtained IRB approval before any recruitment started. Results: Although 1 participant did not achieve a score that put her in the category of better asthma knowledge, all 6 participants showed improvement in asthma knowledge after tailored asthma education. Also, all 6 participants improved their inhaler skills and technique post-tailored asthma education. In addition, a discovery in this study shows that patients with asthma may have a false sense of confidence in disease management. Conclusions: Although more research is needed to generalize the results, findings indicate that tailored asthma education can improve patients’ asthma knowledge and inhaler technique. In addition, findings suggest that tailored asthma education can improve patients’ confidence in asthma self-management.