Original Articles: Asthma, Lower Airway DiseasesAsthma patients’ perception of their ability to influence disease control and management
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Patients’ beliefs and perception of their disease and treatments play a role in the management of chronic diseases, markedly asthma. 1, 2, 3 Locus of control (LOC) refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that directly affect them. Individuals with a high internal LOC believe that events result primarily from their own behavior and actions. Such people tend to presume that their efforts to control their disease will be successful. They are more active in
Study Design and Population
A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 19, 2004, through July 7, 2005. Asthma patients 15 years or older, receiving inhaled anti-inflammatory therapy during the past 6 months, and supervised by general practitioner (GP) members of the Cegedim France network were eligible for inclusion. Patients were excluded if they had an associated diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or language or understanding problems. When they visited their GP, the GP explained the study to the
RESULTS
Of the 204 patients who completed questionnaires, analyses were restricted to the 163 who used the visual analog scale to indicate their LOC. Median LOC value was 50% (25th-75th percentiles, 35%-67%). These 163 patients did not differ from the remaining 41 as to sex, asthma control, and severity markers, but they were younger (P = .004).
DISCUSSION
This is 1 of the few investigations of LOC in asthma. Likewise, changes in LOC orientation over time are seldom documented. LOC orientation markedly varied among asthma patients, and those with a lower internal LOC orientation were more likely to be older and to have uncontrolled asthma. LOC seems also to fluctuate with time, in parallel to change of asthma control status. In contrast, no association was observed with other personal characteristics, asthma-related factors, or management-related
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Myriam Balmy (Cegedim-France) for her valuable assistance in the data management process and Liel Osman, PhD, and Philippe Le Jeunne, MD, for their help in improving the manuscript
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Disclosures: Authors have nothing to disclose.
Funding Sources: This study was supported by a grant from Glaxo-SmithKline France.