The Journal of asthma : official journal of the Association for the Care of Asthma
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Effective management of asthma requires the development of a partnership between the patient and his or her health care professionals. In a number of countries, including Turkey, pharmacy workers are the last link in the asthma therapy chain and usually give information to their patients about the use of these drugs and asthma. As a result, we investigated knowledge of asthma and the use of inhaler devices in pharmacy workers in Istanbul pharmacies. ⋯ Istanbul pharmacy workers have limited knowledge about asthma and inhaler devices and need further education, which may contribute to improved asthma control in Turkey.
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Comparative Study
Asthma management and inhalation techniques among community pharmacists in 2009: a comparison with the 1999 survey.
In a 1999 survey, community pharmacists from the Alsace region of France had a reasonably good knowledge of asthma treatment and prevention, but their skill in the use of asthma inhalation devices left room for improvement. Since then, health authorities have encouraged the involvement of community pharmacists in patient care and education in order to improve asthma control. The aim of this study was to assess the change in the knowledge of asthma management and inhaler technique skills of community pharmacists in the same geographic area after a 10-year interval. ⋯ Since 1999, pharmacists' skill in the use of inhalers has improved, but theoretical knowledge of asthma management is still average, pointing to the importance of continuing pharmaceutical education.
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The goals of this study are to identify factors associated with ordering of chest radiographs (CXR's) in children hospitalized with acute asthma exacerbations and determine the overall clinical impact of these CXR's. ⋯ The majority of CXR's ordered in pediatric inpatients with asthma exacerbation do not provide clinically relevant information.
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Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are underutilized among persistent asthmatics. Because of low outpatient follow-up rates after Emergency Department (ED) visits, children are unlikely to be prescribed ICS by their primary care physician after an acute exacerbation. ED physicians have the opportunity to contribute to the delivery of preventive care in the acute care setting. Our objective was to evaluate if quality improvement (QI) methods could improve the rate of ICS initiation at ED discharge. ⋯ This study demonstrates that QI methods can be used to increase inhaled corticosteroid initiation rate at the time of ED discharge and, thus, improve the delivery of preventive asthma care in the acute care setting.
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Increases in asthma and obesity over the past three decades have led to speculation about a causal link between the two diseases. However, investigations of the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) - a marker of eosinophilic airway inflammation - have produced mixed results. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between body mass index (BMI), asthma and FeNO in a sample of U.S. adults using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) for 2007-2010. ⋯ Our results suggest that in the U.S. adult population, BMI is not associated with eosinophilic airway inflammation.