Asthma knowledge, control and quality of life in ethnically diverse communities

Introduction: Asthma is dependent on self-management to prevent deterioration, yet little is known about management strategies used by patients of different ethnic backgrounds.
Methods: Asthma patients of Chinese or Anglo-Celtic ethnicity were recruited via public hospital clinics, physician consulting rooms and a community health foundation. Interviews were conducted in Mandarin, Cantonese or English. Participants completed validated asthma knowledge, control and quality of life (QoL) questionnaires in their language of choice.
Results: We recruited 31 asthma patients (16 Chinese, 15 Anglo); 21 women and 10 men; mean[SD] age 47.4 [18.3] years. Clinical severity was mild in 16(52%), moderate in 13(42%) and severe in 2(6%) not differing significantly with ethnicity. Asthma knowledge was significantly lower in Chinese than Anglo patients (mean 73.8[9.6] v 56.1[9.8], p<0.001) and remained significant after fitting severity. Knowledge was less in older patients, but unrelated to sex. Asthma control was significantly worse in Anglo than Chinese patients (median[IQR] 1.33[0.75, 1.83] v 0[0, 1.75], p=0.014) and a higher proportion of Anglo patients had poorly controlled asthma(40% v 25%, p=0.046) yet asthma control was more closely related to severity than ethnicity. Asthma related QoL was slightly but not significantly worse in Anglo than Chinese patients.
Conclusions: Asthma knowledge was lower in the Chinese group and lower still with less fluency in English. Whilst limited asthma knowledge was not associated with poorer asthma control or QoL, impact on ability to self-manage asthma cannot be excluded.