Patient education in asthma

The day and night symptoms, medical therapy requirements, PEFR monitorizing : hospital admisssions, pulmonary function parameters and the seventy of d isease of 80 asthmatics were compared before and after an education program which was repeated 3 times with a 4 month interval in groups of 20 people in order to evaluate the impact of education. The mean age of 63 female, 17 male patients was 40.52 +/- 10.89 (18-70). Day and night symptom scores we re significantly decreased (p < 0.05). Self-recording of PEFR values was in creased from 22.7% to 66.7% (p<0.05). Mean PEF% was changed from 65.59 +/- 24.32 (20-129) to 78.91 +/- 22.15 (31-144) and FEV1% pred. from 70.35 +/- 2 0.71 to 80.55 +/- 22.05 (p = 0.0000). Mild intermittan, mild, moderate and severe persistan groups were changed from 25.3% to 70.3%, 27.8% to 18.9%, 2 6.6% to 2.7% and 20.3% to 8.1% respectively (p < 0.05). These results stron gly suggest the importance of education on management in asthma.