Aerosol Therapy Compliance in Patients with Bronchial Asthma – A real world study

Dr. P. Nimay Kumar Reddy; Dr. P Srinivas Reddy

Volume : X, Issue : II, February - 2020

Aerosol Therapy Compliance in Patients with Bronchial Asthma – A real world study

Dr. P. Nimay Kumar Reddy, Dr. P Srinivas Reddy

Abstract :

Objective: To study the compliance of aerosol therapy and reasons for non– compliance Design: One–year long descriptive longitudinal study. Study period was 1st March 2018 to 28th Feuary 2019 Methods: Compliance of aerosol therapy in 100 onchial asthma patients was studied by a questionnaire and interviewing. The patients were asked to maintain a dairy regarding the use of aerosol therapy and were reviewed at the end of every month for three consecutive months. Results: Our study showed regular compliance in only 33 patients (33%). Thus the defaults rate is 67%. Majority of the defaulters are in age group of 31 to 40 years and 41 to 50 years. A total of 22 patients (22%) missed 11–20 doses over a period of three consecutive months while 13 patients (13%) missed more than 30 doses during 3 months of observations. Conclusion: Our study showed the reasons for non–compliance include low education status, low economic status, side effects, awkward regimes, and difficulties with inhaler devices, negligence, distant pharmacies and symptomatic improvement. During the study, various strategies were employed to improve the compliance of the patients like verbal praise, inter active communication skills and answering patient’s families’ worries. After patient’s education, the compliance increased in 23 patients, while 44 patients were non–compliant even after education.