Assessment of Asthma Control Among Asthmatic Patients at Primary Healthcare Centers in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Introduction Asthma is the most common respiratory disease worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, asthma is considered as a major public health concern and has a negative impact in the life of patients, their families, and the community, including lost days of work, absence from school, and poor quality of life, which can eventually lead to frequent emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and sometimes, to death. Thus, the objectives of this study were to evaluate asthma control status among asthmatic patients in primary health care centers (PHCCs) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia and to identify factors associated with poor asthma control. Methods This was a cross-sectional study conducted from March to May 2016 in selected PHCCs in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Data was collected from five PHCCs which were selected using a stratified random sample technique from a total of 47 PHCCs to represent the different geographic regions of the city. The 167 asthmatic patients, aged four years and above, presented during the study period were included. Each respondent completed two tools: the first is a self-administrated questionnaire and the second is the asthma control test. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS version 21 software (IBM Corp, Armonk, USA). Qualitative variables were analyzed with the Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test as appropriate. Results Around one-third (34.1%) of all asthmatic patients were categorized as having uncontrolled asthma and about one-quarter (24.6%) were partially controlled asthma. Dust (91.6%), exposure to incense, detergent and essence (86.8%), common cold (82%) and cold weather (79.6%) were the factors that trigger or exacerbate asthma attacks. Physical activity/exercise and cold weather were the commonest factors that significantly exacerbate asthma attacks particularly among children and were mostly uncontrolled. More than one-third (36.5%) of the asthmatic patients in the PHCCs were cared for by general practitioners. Conclusion Poor asthma control was observed in a high proportion of asthmatic children, adolescents and adults in the Makkah region and they were mostly from non-specialized PHCCs. The poor asthma control among the respondents affects their quality of sleep (i.e., frequent awakening at night), recurrent absences from work and school, increased hospitalizations, emergency and unscheduled visits to the hospital.

Level of asthma control and frequency of emergency visits during COVID 19 pandemic: Cross sectional study

“…It's well known that non controlled asthma have a negative and exaggerated impact on individual and health system, so this study comes to test asthma control among the participants and emergency visits frequency before and after COVID pandemic. Our study showed that 79% of participants have uncontrolled asthma this percentage was higher if compared to a study conducted in Makkah 58.8%(Alansari Mirza et al, 2020). But lower if compared to Riyadh (95%) and Taif (88%) (Al-Jahdali et al, 2008; Al-Zahrani et al, 2014) in Denmark 30.8% of asthmatic patients were poorly controlled in Portugal the percentage is slightly higher 43.3%(Von et al, 2014; Sá-Sousa et al., 2006).…”

“…Results also showed that house dust is the most prevalent trigger 70.8% (Figure 1). (Alansari Mirza et al, 2020) study in Saudi Arabia highlighted that dusts and detergents were the commonest triggers among asthmatic patients. Also the results indicate that smoking is the most independent variable affecting the asthma control scale (Beta; 0.368).…”