%0 Journal Article
%T Utilization and responsiveness of the asthma control test (ACT) at the initiation of therapy for patients with asthma: a randomized controlled trial
%A Mohamed S Al Moamary
%A Ahmed G Al-Kordi
%A Mohammed O Al Ghobain
%A Hani M Tamim
%J BMC Pulmonary Medicine
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2466-12-14
%X This study was designed as a randomized clinical trial conducted in a primary care setting. The subjects were asthma patients who had not received controller therapy for at least two months. The patients were randomized into two groups: The Saudi Initiative for Asthma (SINA) group and the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) group. Treatment in the SINA group was initiated at step1 when the ACT scores ¡Ý 20, step 2 when the score between16-19, and step 3 when the score < 16 began at step 3. The GINA group patients were started on step 2 when they had persistent asthma symptoms or step 3 when they had severely uncontrolled disease.Forty-five patients were analyzed in each group. The improvement in ACT score after treatment initiation was significantly higher when the SINA approach was used (2.9 in the SINA group compared to 1.7 in the GINA group (p = 0.04)). The improvement in FEV1 was 5.8% in the SINA group compared to 3.4% in the GINA group (p = 0.46). The number of patients who achieved asthma control at the follow-up visit and required no treatment adjustment was 33 (73.3%) in the SINA group and 27 (60%) in the GINA group (p = 0.0125).The ACT was responsive to change at the initiation of asthma treatment and was useful for the initiation of asthma treatment.ISRCTN31998214The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) has evolved management from being based on a severity index to the concept of achieving asthma control [1-4]. It has adopted a five-step approach to control asthma, where each step represents a different treatment option with increasing efficacy. The five-step approach is designed to maintain control with the least amount of medication [1,5]. For the initiation of treatment, the GINA recommended step 2 for most treatment na£¿ve patients with persistent symptoms, while step 3 was recommended for severely uncontrolled disease [1]. The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) is another major guideline that utilized asthma severity categorization
%K Asthma
%K Asthma control test
%K Guidelines
%K Global initiative for asthma
%K Saudi initiative for asthma
%K Control
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2466/12/14