Background

The Asthma Control Test (ACT) is a tool that allows physicians to estimate the control of asthma symptoms on each patient in a quick way.

Methods

We conducted a prospective single-center observational study enrolling 97 patients with asthma, selected from the Outpatient Respiratory Service of “Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele” in Catania.

Patients answered the ACT in full autonomy. Subsequently, the physician, blinded to the previous ACT evaluation, administered a new ACT and then assessed patients' medical condition during his/her visit. A second physician evaluated patients’ level of symptom control according to GINA guidelines. Agreement in ACT score was analyzed using the Kendall coefficient of concordance (W) for ACT individual items and overall score. The impact of different education levels on the ACT was analyzed with the Mann-Whitney test.

Main findings

There was no significant difference in ACT total score obtained by either administration mode (p > 0.05). Responses to ACT single items showed a statistically significant difference between patients with lower and higher education levels in ACT items n°3 and 5, (p < 0.05), with lower education levels influencing patients symptom perception and disease control.

Moreover, a significant difference in the evaluation of asthma control was found between ACT and GINA assessment of symptom control (p < 0.05).

中文翻译：

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自我控制和医师管理的测试之间哮喘控制测试分数的可比性。

背景

哮喘控制测试（ACT）是一种工具，可让医生快速评估每位患者的哮喘症状控制情况。

方法

我们进行了一项前瞻性单中心观察性研究，纳入了来自卡塔尼亚“ Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele”门诊呼吸科的97例哮喘患者。

患者完全自主地回答了ACT。随后，医师对先前的ACT评估视而不见，进行了一次新的ACT，然后在就诊期间评估了患者的医疗状况。另一位医师根据GINA指南评估了患者的症状控制水平。使用肯德尔（Kendall）一致性系数（W）对ACT单个项目和总体得分进行分析，以评估ACT得分的一致性。使用曼恩·惠特尼（Mann-Whitney）检验分析了不同教育水平对ACT的影响。

主要发现

两种给药方式所获得的ACT总分均无显着差异（p> 0.05）。对ACT单项的反应显示，在ACT项n°3和5中，低文化程度和高文化程度的患者之间存在统计学差异（p <0.05），低文化程度影响患者的症状知觉和疾病控制。

此外，ACT和GINA对症状控制的评估之间在哮喘控制评估方面存在显着差异（p <0.05）。