Validation of the Asthma Control Test in pregnant asthmatic women

Abstract

The ACT proved to be reliable and could discriminate between levels of asthma control in pregnant women confirming its value as a useful tool for the management of asthma during pregnancy.

Validation of the Pregnancy Asthma Control Test

“…Previous studies also described that ACT scores were responsive to changes in asthma course, although the report from pregnant women was based on only 10 individuals. 14,18 Furthermore, the current study provided some evidence supporting construct validity of the p-ACT as lower p-ACT scores were associated with previous exacerbations at most of the assessments. The predictive validity of the p-ACT for exacerbations before the subsequent interview was poor, regardless of the time window examined.…”

“…A validation study of the ACT in pregnant women with asthma was conducted recently in Brazil using the Portuguese version of the ACT. 18 This study demonstrated that the ACT, administered through in-person interview to 40 pregnant women, discriminated between controlled and uncontrolled asthma and was responsive to symptom improvements during pregnancy. However, it is critical to confirm the validity of the ACT for pregnant women in different and larger study populations.…”

Asthma in pregnancy: association between the Asthma Control Test and the Global Initiative for Asthma classification and comparisons with spirometry

“…The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 3.052 and 0.067, respectively. The questionnaire was found to be highly effective for discriminating between controlled and uncontrolled asthma, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.846 (95% CI: 0.74-0.92) [11].…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the association between clinical asthma control by the Asthma Control Test (ACT) in pregnancy and the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) classification and to compare an objective instrument for measuring pulmonary function -spirometrywith two subjective instruments for the clinical evaluation of asthma during late second trimester pregnancy [11,12]. In this study, there was a statistically significant association between the clinical control of asthma during pregnancy by the GINA classification and the ACT, with p < 0.001.…”

“…This instrument is considered a helpful tool in the identification of poorly controlled asthmatic patients during and treatment and follow-up [10]. Recently, the ACT has been used in pregnant women with asthma, and its ability to identify controlled and uncontrolled asthma was validated in the Portuguese language, Brazilian version [11].…”