The Risk of Hospitalization and Near-Fatal and Fatal Asthma in Relation to the Perception of Dyspnea

Sensory and Affective Aspects of Dyspnea Contribute Differentially to the Borg Scale’s Measurement of Dyspnea

“…The adequate perception of onset and severity of dyspnea is an important component of current respiratory disease self-management programs, particularly in asthma [3, 4]. The failure to perceive the severity of a beginning bronchoconstriction can lead to delayed or inadequate medication, delayed hospitalization and might, at worst, result in avoidable death [5,6,7,8]. …”

Predictors of asthma-related health care utilization and quality of life among inner-city patients with asthma

“…5,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Many demographic, clinical, utilization, medication, and social/environmental factors have been associated with an increased risk of acute asthma-related resource utilization. Among the most consistent risk factors reported were sex, lower socioeconomic status, more clinically severe asthma (including previous utilization), and increased use of rescue medications.…”

Validation of a β-agonist long-term asthma control scale derived from computerized pharmacy data

“…However, additional reasons for discordance between the b-agonist scale and symptom measures include patients who choose not to treat their symptoms or patients who do not perceive them well. 16 The current data do not allow us to know how much of the discordance is due to the latter factors, but our clinical experience suggests that such patients are uncommon. The b-agonist control measure itself also does not differentiate mild disease requiring little medication for control from more severe but well controlled disease, although measures of controller use from administrative data would help make that differentiation if it was necessary to do so.…”