ABSTRACT
With a wide range of efficacious asthma medications and clear guidelines
for their use now available (1-4), it is often low rates of patient compliance that poses the major challenge to effective asthma management (5-9). An
important contributor to poor patient compliance may be a discrepancy
between the goals of the clinician and those of the patient (10). Clinicians
tend to focus on prevention of mortality and reduction of morbidity by good
asthma control, whereas patients are usually more concerned with their
ability to function normally in their day-to-day lives. Improved clinician
awareness of patients’ asthma-related quality of life goals and a willingness
to address them may enhance patients’ willingness to take medications and thus improve both their asthma control and their quality of life. Hence,
there is a need for quick, valid, easy-to-use, self-administered, and clinic
friendly quality of life questionnaires. The responses to these questionnaires
can be used during the consultation to identify the patient’s greatest needs,
to ascertain how troublesome they are, and to ensure that they are included
in the treatment plan. Questionnaires with strong measurement properties can also be used to monitor patient’s progress over time.
