Tacit and transitionary: an exploration of patients' and primary care health professionals' goals in relation to asthma.

Goal setting is recommended in UK health policy to make health care more patient-centred, to enhance the likelihood of behaviour change and to improve health outcomes. Patient-centred care is thought to be particularly important in the management of long term conditions such as asthma. We therefore explored and compared the asthma goals of both health professionals and people with asthma within the primary care clinical consultation, and identified the potential barriers to achieving shared goals and more patient-centred care provision.

Do the British Guidelines for Asthma Management facilitate concordance?

Background: Asthma is an example of a common, chronic illness in which clinicians are encouraged to promote concordance and adhere to guidelines. Some existing research suggests that these aims may be incompatible.

Objectives: To describe patient goals for life and for asthma management in order to inform concordance with people with asthma.

Lay versus professional motivation for asthma treatment: a cross-sectional, qualitative study in a single Glasgow general practice.

Objective: Our aim was to identify the factors which motivate patient self-management in asthma and to compare the results with the factors which appear to have motivated the content of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) clinical guidelines for chronic asthma in adults.

Method: We conducted a cross-sectional, qualitative survey of asthma patients from a single general practice list in Glasgow, Scotland. Twenty-three adult asthma patients on at least step 2 of the BTS guidelines were selected from the practice asthma register.