Selection of Representative Questionnaire Items from the Asthma Control Test.

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Respiratory Medicine
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Asthma management focuses on control, not cure, with digital systems offering potential benefits.
• Conventional asthma control assessments are not optimized for digital healthcare applications.
• Developing digital tools requires representative questionnaire items for accurate asthma status evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and validate representative items from the Asthma Control Test (ACT) for digital asthma assessment.
• To determine the most effective subset of ACT questions for reliable digital health monitoring.
• To establish a foundation for digital asthma control assessment tools.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 2019 Asthma Control Test (ACT) results from adult asthma patients collected in 2020.
• Statistical evaluation of individual ACT questionnaire items using Pearson's correlation and ROC curves.
• Assessment of sensitivity and specificity for selected item combinations, including Q1-Q3.

Main Results:

• Items Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q5 from the ACT showed significant findings in the analysis.
• The combination of Q1-Q3 demonstrated the highest sensitivity (97%) and specificity (91%) for assessing asthma control.
• Item Q2 was identified as highly descriptive and correlated, while Q5 was excluded due to digital healthcare limitations.

Conclusions:

• A simplified assessment using the sum of ACT items Q1-Q3 is a viable alternative to the full ACT for evaluating asthma control.
• This validated subset of questions can facilitate the development of effective digital asthma management tools.
• The findings support the integration of digital solutions for more accessible and efficient asthma control monitoring.