Asthma control score based on filled medication prescriptions: a validation study.

Area of Science:

• Pulmonary Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Periodic assessment of asthma control is crucial for patient management and treatment monitoring.
• Existing methods for asthma control assessment may not be suitable for large-scale studies using administrative data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an Asthma Control Score (ACS) for research utilizing administrative health databases.
• To assess the feasibility of using administrative data for asthma control monitoring.

Main Methods:

• Adult asthma patients were recruited from a clinic.
• The ACS was calculated based on dispensed short-acting inhaled beta(2)-agonists and oral corticosteroids over three months.
• Data were sourced from the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec database and compared with asthma control questionnaire and healthcare service utilization.

Main Results:

• Sixty adult asthma patients were analyzed (mean age 50.4 years).
• The mean ACS was 8.3 ± 11.6.
• While not correlated with the asthma control questionnaire, the ACS significantly predicted healthcare service use, with each point increase associated with a 2% higher likelihood of needing acute asthma care.

Conclusions:

• The developed Asthma Control Score (ACS) shows promise for assessing long-term asthma control cost-effectively within administrative drug databases.
• Further validation in primary care settings is recommended before widespread adoption.
• This score offers an innovative approach to asthma monitoring in large populations.