History of symptom triggers in patients presenting to the emergency department for asthma.

Objectives: Understanding triggers is important for managing asthma particularly for patients who seek emergency department (ED) care for exacerbations. The objectives of this analysis were to delineate self-reported triggers in ED patients and to assess associations between triggers and asthma knowledge, severity, and quality of life.

Methods: At the time of an ED visit, 296 patients were asked what were their usual asthma triggers based on a checklist of 25 potential items, and what they thought specifically precipitated their current ED visit. Using standardized scales, patients also were asked about asthma knowledge, severity, and quality of life.

Results: The mean age was 44 years and 72% were women. Patients cited a mean of 12 triggers; most patients had diverse triggers spanning respiratory infections, environmental irritants, emotions, allergens, weather, and exercise. Patients with more triggers were more likely to be women (odds ratio (OR) = 2.0, confidence interval (CI) = 1.3, 3.2, p = .002), obese (OR = 1.7, CI = 1.1, 2.5, p = .01), and to not have a smoking history (OR = 1.9, CI = 1.3, 2.9, p = .001). There were no associations between number of triggers and current age, age at diagnosis, education, socioeconomic status, or race/ethnicity. Patients who cited more triggers had more frequent flares (OR = 1.1, CI = 1.1, 1.2, p < .0001), worse quality of life scores (OR 1.6, CI = 1.1, 2.4, p = .02), and were more likely to have been previously hospitalized for asthma (OR = 1.9, CI = 1.3, 2.9, p = .003) and to have previously required oral corticosteroids (OR = 2.9, CI = 1.6, 5.1, p = .003). There was little clustering of specific triggers according to the variables we considered except for more frequent animal allergy in patients diagnosed at a younger age (OR = 2.8, CI = 1.7, 4.5, p < .0001) and worse quality of life in patients citing emotional stress as a trigger (OR = 2.5, CI = 1.5, 4.0, p = .0002). Patients attributed their current ED visit to multiple precipitants, particularly respiratory infections and weather, and these were concordant with what they reported were known triggers.

Conclusions: Patients presenting to the ED for asthma reported multiple triggers spanning diverse classes of precipitants and having more triggers was associated with worse clinical status. ED patients should be instructed that although it may not be possible to eliminate all triggers, mitigating even some triggers can be helpful.