Objective: To determine the effect of age, disease severity and compliance on the annual primary-care cost of managing patients with asthma initially on British Thoracic Society British Guidelines on Asthma Management (BGAM) treatment steps 2/3 over 5 years. Design and setting: A modelling study...

Objective:The primary objective was to evaluate the relationship between willingness-to-pay (WTP), quality-of-life (QOL), and disease-severity measures in patients with asthma. The hypothesis studied was that patients with asthma with more severe disease are willing to pay more for a...

Background: Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in the US, and its prevalence continues to increase. Despite the availability of effective asthma controller medications, many patients with asthma are still not meeting therapeutic goals because of poor disease management. The high...

Objective: To compare the relative cost effectiveness of salmeterol (50mug)/ fluticasone propionate (100mug) with that of oral montelukast (10mg) as initial maintenance therapy in patients with persistent asthma uncontrolled on short-acting beta2-agonist therapy alone. Study design: A...

Asthma is a growing health problem that affects 4.8 million children in the US alone. This paper considers empirical studies from the past 20 years examining the relationship between psychosocial factors and asthma management and morbidity. Research indicates that psychosocial factors, including...

With increasing chronic disease and disability burden as a result of the aging of populations worldwide, cost estimates of disease and disability are important in determining: 1. the most cost-effective methods in delivering healthcare in order to maximise resources; and 2. health policies and...

Background: Asthma is a major public health problem in developed countries. In Canada, the prevalence of asthma is approximately 5 to 7%, with some provincial variation. A retrospective study using data collected in 1990 estimated the total costs of asthma in Canada to be between $Can504 million...

Objectives: To compare the experience of one managed care organization (MCO) [Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Midwest Region] to the experience of a reference group of 15 other MCOs participating in a study designed to test the usefulness of outcomes management information in developing and...

Patient adherence to self-management strategies is a major issue in asthma, as in other chronic diseases. Adherence should not be defined exclusively in terms of medication use, but the more behavioral aspects of self-management such as avoidance of aggravating factors and risk behaviors,...

Objective: To determine the economic impact of an asthma education programme. Design and setting: The study was population-based and used claims data to determine changes in the resources used by identified patients with asthma 9 months before (January 1997 to September 1997) and 9 months after...