Conducting Annual Asthma Reviews Using Telehealthcare: Comparison With Standard Care (Face-to-face Consultations)

Detailed Summary

The National Report of Asthma Deaths published in 2014 highlighted significant deficiencies in both primary and secondary care resulting in one of the highest mortality rates in Europe. A key recommendation in the report is the provision of an annual asthma review in primary care. Telehealthcare is an alternative means of service delivery incorporating the use of telephone and e-mail consultations which may improve access and quality of patient care. There is scant data on the role of teleheathcare in asthma care. This is a single-centre, primary care-based, randomized controlled trial to evaluate the use of telehealthcare to conduct the annual asthma review for adult patients with well-controlled asthma. This will be compared with standard care (face-to-face consultations). Telehealthcare will consist of a telephone consultation followed by an e-mail with an attached personalised asthma action plan and a link to a video demonstrating inhaler technique. Standard care will involve a face-to-face consultation in primary care. The two patient groups will be compared prospectively to determine whether there is a difference in the quality of care evaluated in terms of the patient experience/ satisfaction, health-related quality of life, asthma control and frequency of asthma exacerbations over a 6 month period after the asthma review. The data will be presented in the form of frequency tables, bar charts and pie charts. Non-parametric tests will be applied to determine whether there is a significant difference in the quality of care received.

Study Details

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Interventions