Project: Exploring the beliefs and behaviours of people with asthma who attend the emergency department

Exploring the beliefs and behaviours of people with asthma who attend the emergency department

Acute asthma presentations to the Emergency Department are common. Once an acute exacerbation has been managed, many patients will be well enough for discharge home from the ED. For these patients, there is the opportunity to provide an intervention to help them improve their long-term asthma control before they are discharged home.

Patient preferences, knowledge and beliefs about their asthma are likely to be important in how someone manages their condition. Many asthma attacks could be prevented if we better understood patients’ thoughts about asthma and how people like to take their asthma treatment.

Understanding the health beliefs and behaviours of people with asthma who attend ED for exacerbations, and those of the healthcare professionals in emergency departments and primary care who typically provide their care, is the first step to being able to develop interventions that consider and respond to these beliefs and hence are likely to be more successful.

Project aims

Our study aims to explore the health beliefs and behaviours of patients and healthcare professionals relating to asthma care, and attitudes to switching long-term medications in the emergency department, including to a maintenance and reliever therapy (MART) inhaler in adult patients who have presented to the emergency department with their asthma.

Participants

We aim to conduct interviews with up to 20 people with asthma and up to 20 healthcare professionals over 6 months.
People with asthma will be approached in participating emergency departments and given information about taking part in the study.
Healthcare professionals are invited to contact the study team directly to express interest in taking part in this study.

Developing an intervention

The results of this study are intended to be used to help develop an intervention to improve long term asthma control for people presenting to the Emergency Department with an acute exacerbation of their asthma.

Want to get involved?

Are you a registered healthcare professional in the UK?
Do you have recent experience of providing care to patients with asthma (in either the emergency department or a primary care setting)?

If you answered yes to the questions above, you may be eligible for this study.

Read the details of what is involved in this study in the Participant Information Sheet

Participant Information Sheet - Exploration of asthma related health beliefs and behaviours in the Emergency Department (164.97 KB / PDF)

Email the study team to get involved