Examination of Barriers to Medication Adherence, Asthma Management, and Control Among Community Pharmacy Patients With Asthma.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the prevalence of common barriers to asthma medication adherence and examine associations between patient-reported asthma controller adherence and asthma control, therapy adherence barriers, and asthma management characteristics.

METHODS

Previously developed asthma-specific tool was pilot tested on a convenience sample of adult patients with persistent asthma. The following data were collected via patient survey: demographic characteristics and comorbidities, adherence, asthma control, and asthma management characteristics. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to address the study objective.

RESULTS

The patients (N = 93) were 45.4 (17.2) years of age, and 66.7% were female. The majority had poor (68.8%) adherence, with 61.3% of patients having controlled asthma. There was no significant association between adherence and asthma control. The mean number of barriers for good and poor adherence groups differed significantly: 2.0 ± 1.1 and 5.4 ± 2.4, respectively ( < .0001). Having an asthma action plan (AAP) was the only asthma management characteristic significantly related to adherence. The majority of patients with poor adherence did not have an AAP (76.6%), whereas 81.5% of patients with good adherence did have an AAP ( < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

The use of this survey tool confirmed presence of asthma-specific barriers, thus using this specialized approach may lead to more effective, targeted counseling in community pharmacy settings.