Superior clinical outcomes of inner city asthma patients treated in an allergy clinic

Background: Asthma morbidity and mortality continue to increase especially in the inner cities despite medical advances in disease management. Objective: To investigate the clinical outcomes of inner city asthma patien ts treated in an allergy clinic. Methods: Phase 1 involved random review of medical records of 100 asthma pa tients treated in an allergy clinic for 2 consecutive years, assessing the frequency of hospitalizations, emergency room visits (ERV) and asthma sever ity during three periods; 1 year prior to initial visit (year 0) and during the first (year 1) and second (year 2) years of intervention. Phase 2 invo lved administration of quality of life (QOL) survey to 23 patients voluntee red from allergy clinic (group I), and 21 patients volunteered from emergen cy room (group II), treated by primary care or emergency room physicians du ring the previous year. Results: The frequency of hospitalizations and ERV significantly declined o ver time (P < .001) with greatest declines during year 1. Disease severity of all patients significantly declined over time (P < .001); good compliers had significant improvement over poor compliers (P < .023). Quality of lif e scores were significantly lower for both groups than for the general popu lation; and although the scores were higher in the allergy clinic group tha n in the non-allergy clinic group, significant differences were achieved on ly in mental health and social functioning domains. Conclusions: Patients treated in an allergy clinic demonstrate superior cli nical outcomes.