Documentation of comorbidities, lifestyle factors, and asthma management during primary care scheduled asthma contacts.

Systematically assessing asthma during follow-up contacts is important to accomplish comprehensive treatment. No previous long-term studies exist on how comorbidities, lifestyle factors, and asthma management details are documented in scheduled asthma contacts in primary health care (PHC). We showed comorbidities and lifestyle factors were poorly documented in PHC in this real-life, 12-year, follow-up study.

Documentation of smoking in scheduled asthma contacts in primary health care: a 12-year follow-up study.

Smoking among asthmatics is common and associates with poorer asthma control, more rapid lung function decline and higher health care costs in dose-dependent manner. No previous real-life studies exist, however, on how smoking status and pack-years are documented in scheduled asthma contacts in primary health care (PHC) during long-term follow-up, and how often patients are advised to quit smoking. In this real-life 12-year follow-up study, we showed that out of all scheduled PHC asthma contacts (n = 603) smoking was mentioned only in 17.

Participation in scheduled asthma follow-up contacts and adherence to treatment during 12-year follow-up in patients with adult-onset asthma.

Background: Poor treatment compliance is a common problem in the treatment of asthma. To our knowledge, no previous long-term follow-up studies exist on how scheduled asthma follow-up contacts occur in primary health care (PHC) versus secondary care and how these contacts relate to adherence to medication and in participation to further scheduled asthma contacts. The aim of this study was to evaluate occurrence of scheduled asthma contacts and treatment compliance in PHC versus secondary care, and to identify the factors associated with non-participation to scheduled contacts.

Planned primary health care asthma contacts during 12-year follow-up after Finnish National Asthma Programme: focus on spirometry.

Primary health care (PHC) providers are at the front line of asthma management. To evaluate how planned asthma follow-up occurred in PHC and whether lung function tests were used, 203 patients were followed for 12 years as part of a real-life asthma cohort Seinäjoki Adult Asthma Study (SAAS). A total of 152 patients had visits in PHC attending on average to four planned contacts during 12-year follow-up corresponding to one visit every third year.