The National Asthma Campaign is launching an initiative to increase the use of self management plans in asthma.
The initiative, which will be introduced in the autumn, is in response to a survey which investigated health professionals' attitudes towards the use of asthma self management plans.
The ASPIRE (asthma self management plans in reality) study surveyed over 600 health professionals. The concept of self management plans was unfamiliar to more than half of health professionals who had no specialist interest in asthma. Of those with a specialist interest in asthma, 72 per cent believed that people with asthma could benefit from a self management plan, although only 44 per cent had patients using them.
The NAC says that previous studies have shown that the majority of self management plans are given verbally in spite of current evidence indicating that written plans are more effective. In the ASPIRE survey, health professionals considered written plans to be more effective. However, barriers such as a lack of time in consultations and the format of current plans being too complicated prevented their use in practice.
Dr Martyn Partridge (chief medical adviser, NAC) commented: "The majority of health professionals stated that asthma self management plans needed to be simple, easy to use and provided in a written format. These should be available in a plentiful free supply in order to maximise their use."