High-Quality Asthma Care: It's Not Just About Drugs

Abstract

ASTHMA CARE IS BASED ON THREE SIMPLE, BASIC CONCEPTS: reduce triggers, use controller medicine, and take early action in flare-ups. Implementing these concepts is difficult, however, and nonadherence is common. The patient, family, and health care system tend to focus their attention on crisis care instead of on control, and long-standing behaviors are hard to change. Adherence to asthma control regimens can be improved if clinicians and their patients focus more attention on communication skills, mutual problem solving, and follow-up. Use of a stages-of-change model also can be valuable for facilitating important behavioral change.