Participation in the ARGA study: Long term impact on asthma management

Background : preliminary results of "Respiratory allergic diseases: monitoring study of GINA and ARIA guidelines (ARGA)" study show a poor effect of a medical education course on Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines in improving asthma management. Aim : to evaluate the long term impact of participating in a prospective study on Italian General Practitioners (GP) focused on monitoring the utilization of GINA and Allergic Rhinitis and Its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines for asthma and allergic rhinitis management. Methods: 107 GP enrolled 936 asthmatic patients (mean age 44yrs). For each patient, a self-administered questionnaire on respiratory allergic diseases/symptoms, daily activity limitations, quality of life (by RHINASTHMA questionnaire), disease control (by Asthma Control Test – ACT), health self perception and the relative form filled in by GP were available at baseline and follow up 12 months apart. Results: comparing baseline with follow up, asthma outcomes show an improvement: from 54.2 to 67.4% for asthma control, from 85.2 to 80.0% for asthma-like symptoms in the last 12 months, from 71.9 to 67.2% for daily activity limitations, from 61.2 to 66.6% for good health self perception and from 21.7 to 18.9 for quality of life score. Conclusions : Involvement in a prospective study on asthma management seems to produce a long term effect in GP attitudes ameliorating their asthmatic patients quality of life. This work was supported by the “Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA)”, within the independent drug research program, contract no. “FARM5JYS5A”.