Asthma guideline use in the Caribbean Asthma carers in the Caribbean should disseminate guidelines appropriately and ensure that they are implemented, according to a recent review. antibiotic allergy Equine-hives. Caribbean guidelines for asthma care were developed in 1997 as a joint initiative by the Global Initiative for Asthma and the Commonwealth Caribbean Medical Research Council. Since their introduction, however, the use of pharmacotherapy for the relief and control of asthma has not been examined. An international team of researchers from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Hackenthorpe Medical Centre in Sheffield in the UK, examined the utilisation of inhaled medications in asthmatic patients in Trinidad, where such medication use had previously been low. antibiotic allergy Symptoms of soy allergies. Patients with physician-diagnosed asthma who had attended the chest clinic at Trinidad and Tobago''s ministry of health between July 1998 and August 2002 were included in the study. This comprised 402 people aged seven years and older. Each individual was interviewed about compliance with, understanding of and use of inhaler medication and was asked to demonstrate their inhaler technique. antibiotic allergy Nursing care for asthma. Overall, inhaled steroids had been prescribed to 83 per cent of the patients studied. However, most patients reported regular use of inhaled salbutamol rather than inhaled steroid. Further analysis revealed that elderly patients and children were least likely to have received a prescription for inhaled corticosteroid and were also least likely to use this form of medication when it had been prescribed. Only 33 per cent of patients used their inhaler correctly during the demonstration. Children and the elderly were again the two subgroups who performed the worst. Yet use of a spacer device had been advised in only 19 per cent of the patients, including only 6 per cent of the elderly patients. The team also found a void between reality and patients'' beliefs about good compliance, with widespread cessation of prevention therapy when they were feeling well. Dr Pinto Pereira, from the university, and his team recommend that patient education should specifically address the role of relief and control medications, the correct inhaler techniques and spacer use, and the need for physicians to know, teach and check patient inhaler techniques. "Programmes to improve compliance and inhaler techniques should become an integral component of asthma management in the Caribbean," they said. "This study stresses the need for the administrative authorities and asthma caregivers in Trinidad, and perhaps in the wider Caribbean region, to plan strategies to disseminate and implement the guidelines to optimise therapy and compliance with the use of inhaled steroids and to reduce asthma morbidity, particularly in young and elderly patients," concluded the researchers.
