Grant: Project Grant

Asthma control is suboptimal for 53% of Canadian patient. Asthma action plan (AAP) is provided to patients to help their response to worsening asthma symptoms and reducing exacerbation; however, roughly 50% of patients correctly adhere to it. Recently, Telehealth (TH) technology has been used to improve asthma management and researchers have recommend conducting TH intervention on exacerbation. We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed TH intervention (CANATEXTS) on improving health outcomes among asthma patients. Previously, we conducted a feasibility study with 106 asthma patients to assess the efficacy of TH. The results demonstrated a potential efficacy signal. For this study, we plan to enroll 622 asthma patients from multiple sites across Canada and will randomly allocate them to: (1) Intervention group: will receive standard care, have access to their electronic asthma action plan (eAAP) online and offline, receive weekly text messages check-ins for assessment of their asthma control by checking their eAAP, and be able to send and receive 2-way short message service for their non-emergency queries. (2) Control group: will receive standard care and have access to their AAP in paper format (wAAP). All participants will receive an individualized AAP from a respiratory educator at each site and education on how to use it. Our primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of CANATEXTS on reducing asthma exacerbation over 12-month period. Secondary outcomes are: improvements in quality of life, asthma control, and medication adherence. Cost-effectiveness of CANATEXTS compared to standard care will be assessed too. We predict that a 25% absolute reduction in exacerbation rates at 12-month follow-up assessment will be observed in the intervention group when compared to control group. Further, we believe CANATEXTS will be more effective in improving health outcomes among asthmatic patients and cost-effective when compared to standard care.