TY - JOUR T1 - Difficulties experienced by the asthmatic patients in southern Turkey JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 40 IS - Suppl 56 SP - P1209 AU - Hicran A. Bektas AU - Ilkay K. Keser AU - Arzu O. Akcan Y1 - 2012/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P1209.abstract N2 - Chronic diseases like asthma have a great impact on the everyday life of patients. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the difficulties experienced by the asthmatic patients in Southern Turkey. The sample was composed of 105 asthma patients who had been receiving medical therapy in Akdeniz University Hospital. Data were collected through a demographic data form and the questionnaire about the asthma patients' physical, psychological, social, economic and treatment-related difficulties. The asthma patients in the sample averaged 55.68 years of age (SD 12.29 years, range 18–85) and included most patients who were female (61.9%), married (77.1%), housewife (47.6%) and had completed primary education (40%). Difficulties experienced by the asthmatic patients physically were dyspnea (85.7%), wheezing (82.9%), tiredness (82.9%), cough (76.2%), psychologically were sadness (85.7%), anxiety (64.8%), anger (59.0%), panic (45.7%), socially were do not enter to the closed /crowded places (65.7%), do not go to see to their relatives / friends, economically were loss of income (36.2%), inability to pay for expensive drug charges (30.5%), inability to pay the hospital fees (14.2%), inability to pay fees for the treatment (12.4%), treatment-related difficulties were not having an adequate knowledge about the asthma attack (48.5%), not receiving an adequate information about the treatment (32.3%), not being aware of the consequences of the treatment (23.8%). The information gathered from this study led us to reevaluate the healthcare services for asthmatic patients to improve physical, psychological, and social aspects of the nursing care as a whole. ER -