Clinical health education for patients with asthma-like symptoms but negative asthma tests

Patients with asthma-like symptoms but negative asthma tests often state that they lack strategies to cope with their symptoms. The aim of the study was to determine whether a problem-based health education program had a beneficial effect on the participants' experience of symptoms and subjective health.

Thirty-eight patients, consecutively drawn from an outpatient clinic for asthma and allergy, were randomly allocated to an intervention group (I group, n=18) and a control group (C group, n=20). The I group, divided into three subgroups, met on seven occasions over 5 months. The program had a multidisciplinary approach, used exercises inspired by cognitive behavioral therapy, and was performed according to the principles of problem-based learning. All patients answered the Nijmegen Symptom Questionnaire (NQ) and the SF-36 health survey before and 2 months after the training was terminated.

Before the program, there were no significant differences between the groups in their earlier experience of symptoms. After it, the I group scored significantly lower on shortness of breath (P=0.001) and central tetany (P=0.05) than the C group. On both test occasions, the asthma-like patients scored lower on all variables of the SF-36 than the reference groups of asthmatics and healthy subjects. No significant differences were seen between the I group and the C group except for vitality, in which the C group scored lower before the intervention.

Patients with asthma-like symptoms but negative asthma tests benefit from taking part in a problem-based health education program. It mainly reduces the frequency of symptoms.