High prevalence of mild asthma among asthmatics visiting emergency department (ED)

Asthma exacerbations are a common cause of ED visits and can be life-threatening for patients with asthma. Identification of these patients characteristics could help improve their management and reduce exacerbations rate. We called for a 3-month follow-up visit patients that visited ED and were initially diagnosed with asthma exacerbation. Patients with a definite diagnosis of asthma were finally assessed in terms of the following parameters (Table 1a). 100 patients were enrolled, with 34% being newly diagnosed with asthma. The majority of them had mild asthma, outreaching 72.6% in GINA stages I and II. 13.7% were classified in stage III and 13.7% in stages IV/V. Prior to ED visit treatment included ICS/LABA(32.3%), SABA as needed(24.2%), ICS/LABA plus LAMA(19.4%), ICS/LABA as needed(9.7%) and 8.1% did not receive any treatment. 62.3% were adherent at prescribed treatment. Active smoking was self-reported by 40.4% and passive smoking outreached 31% in non-smokers. Following HAD’s score evaluation 31.2% showed anxiety and 12.5% showed depression (cutoffs>11). See all characteristics on Table 1b. Conclusively, 1/3 of patients visiting ED with asthma exacerbation, were newly diagnosed with asthma. Most of patients were classified in stages I and II and a significant proportion used SABA monotherapy prior to visit. Smoking, poor adherence, psychopathology and commorbidities were highly prevalent characteristics among participants.