Elsevier

Respiratory Medicine

Volume 106, Issue 6, June 2012, Pages 820-828
Respiratory Medicine

Asthma control assessed in the EGEA epidemiological survey and health-related quality of life

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2012.01.009Get rights and content
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Summary

Background

The aims were to assess 1) the relationship of asthma control assessed by combining epidemiological survey questions and lung function to Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) and 2) whether individuals with controlled asthma reach similar generic HRQL levels as individuals without asthma.

Methods

The analysis included 584 individuals without asthma and 498 with asthma who participated in the follow-up of the Epidemiological study on Genetics and Environment of Asthma (EGEA). Asthma control was assessed from survey questions and lung function, closely adapted from the 2006–2009 Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines. The Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ, scores range:1–7) and the generic SF-36 (scores range: 0–100) were used.

Results

Adjusted mean total AQLQ score decreased by 0.5 points for each asthma control steps (6.4, 5.9 and 5.4 for controlled, partly-controlled and uncontrolled asthma respectively, p < 0.0001). The differences in SF-36 scores between individuals with controlled asthma and those without asthma were minor and not significant for the PCS (−1, p = 0.09), borderline significant for the MCS (−1.6, p = 0.05) and small for the 8 domains (<5.1) although statistically significant for 4 domains.

Conclusion

These results support the discriminative properties of the proposed asthma control grading system and its use in epidemiology.

Keywords

Asthma
Asthma control
Epidemiology
Health-related quality of life

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