Physicians' approaches to providing asthma education to patients and the level of patient involvement in management decisions

The objectives of this study were to describe physicians' self-reported app roaches to providing disease-specific education to adults with asthma in an outpatient setting and their opinions about the level of patient involveme nt in management decisions. A mailed questionnaire was completed by 163 ran domly selected physicians, representing an 80% response rate. The education al actions provided most frequently included information about prescribed m edications (90%-100% of physicians), general asthma information (87%-98%), and inhaler demonstration (85%-95%). Educational activities provided least frequently were action plans (7%-74%) and referral to a nonprofit community asthma organization for further information (18%-36%). The reported provis ion of asthma education was related to patients' asthma severity (p < 0.000 1) and physician specialty (p < 0.005). Physicians indicated that their pat ients were less involved in asthma management decisions than they would pre fer (p < 0.001). The results suggest that physicians vary markedly in their approaches to providing asthma education to patients. Future descriptive a nd intervention studies are needed to identify the most effective models fo r providing education and patient involvement.