Evaluation of asthma control in children and adolescents in a education and management program (Programa Respirar) in the city of Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Abstract

Introduction. Asthma is one of the main causes of childhood morbidity, causing great harm to patients. In April 2003 the Programa Respirar was implemented in the city of Ipatinga, located in the eastern region of Minas Gerais, aiming the management of asthmatic children and adolescents with a prophylactic indication to use inhaled anti-inflammatory. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the asthma control of the patients from the Programa Respirar. Methods. A longitudinal retrospective study of 305 asthma patients with indication of inhaled corticosteroid therapy, aged between seven and 19 years, randomly selected in the Programa Respirar of the city of Ipatinga, through analysis of medical records from January 2012 to December 2015. A statistical analysis was performed using the EpiData (3.03) and SPSS (19.0) programs and for the descriptive analysis, frequency distribution tables and central tendency measures (mean) and variability measures (standard deviation, minimum and maximum). For the comparison of the clinical variables at the beginning and after entry on the program, the McNemar test was applied in case of categorical variables and T-paired test for numerical variables. In all analyzes, a significance level of 5% was considered. Results. When comparing the clinical variables before and after three years of admission to the Programa Respirar, 51% of the patients improved the classification of asthma, 60.1% of the children reduced the number of hospitalizations due to asthma attacks, and a reduction 86.7% visits to the emergency room. These differences were statistically significant (p value <0.001). Conclusion. Patients assisted by the program maintain better control over asthma attacks, significantly reducing hospital admissions and emergency room visits as a result of the disease.