Non-Interventional Study to Describe the Clinical Management in Asthmatic Patients (NICMA)

Non-Interventional, Descriptive, Cross-sectional and Unicentric Study to Describe the Clinical Management in Asthmatic Patients Attended in the Influential Area of Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria, Málaga

Asthma is a heterogenic chronic disease that affects more than 300 million people worldwide, which it's characterized by acute symptomatic episodes of varying severity, including intermittently inflammation and narrowing of the airways in the lungs.

The prevalence in Spain it is estimated to be around 5%, according to the European Community Respiratory Survey (ECRHS) and seems to be increased due to a higher rate of asthma diagnosis.

In this condition there's substantial proportion of patients with a poor disease control, which conducts to an important negative impact in their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and the need to use health care resources.

During the past decades multiple clinical practice guidelines, such as the international Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) and national guidelines as Guía Española para el Manejo del Asma (GEMA) have been launched with the aim of improving quality of care in patients with asthma and reduce the high public burden associated to this disease. However, several studies have concluded that high proportion of patients remain uncontrolled, being in Spain estimated around 50%, and there's direct evidence of poor adherence to the guideline's recommendations for asthma management.

This evidence raises the need to determine the assistance quality care in asthma population in the influential area of Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria through the assistance quality care indicators established by GEMA guidelines. The aim of this study is to obtain clinical data that allow to assess assistance quality degree in order to find improvement opportunities to achieve a better control of asthmatic patients within this influential area.

A non-Interventional, descriptive, cross-sectional and unicentric study, has been designed and will be conducted in a Spanish hospital of Málaga. The design of the study imposes an only visit to be performed to obtain the patient's signed IC and after signing it (if patient agreed to participate in the study. Except for this study visit, the rest of study will be based on electronic medical chart review of approximately 300 asthma patients belonging the influential area of Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria. This chart review will be performed by the site investigator or collaborators.

The data collection is stated in 6 months, and during this period the investigators will identify and randomly include the patients who meet selection criteria to avoid bias during patient's inclusion. The observational period will be conformed of 12 months, and the patient's data will be collected or documented in an electronic case report form (eCRF), which will automatically create or assign an identification numerical code to every patient the moment it's created in the electronic platform. This system guarantees the anonymization of each patient included in the study as no identifiable information won't be able to be captured.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Patient with written informed consent prior to participation.
2. Patient female or male ≥ 18 years of age
3. Patient with asthma diagnosis more than one year before the study inclusion
4. Clinical data available at least 1 year before the study inclusion in the electronic medical records.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Patient's participation in any clinical trial during the year prior to the index date for data collection.