Be a part of our #AsthmaMyths Campaign
Watch our animations and listen to our podcast series (click on the links below): these highlight some of the more common myths that can form a barrier to effective symptom control. Read about this issue in more depth.
PCRS has guidance and resources to help you support your patients and blow away common myths associated with asthma and improve patient outcomes.
You can do a lot in practice to help people live better with asthma. The time you invest and the words you use really do matter to promote ‘self care’ as myths still exist that can be countered with the right clinical skills and resources to aid.
Myth #1 "Asthma Is Not a Serious Disease" |
Myth #2 "Coughing is part and parcel of asthma" |
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"It’s only asthma...” Sound familiar? Many patients wrongly think asthma is not a serious disease.
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The truth is with the right treatment patients with asthma can lead a normal life.
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Myth #3 "I only need my blue inhaler" |
Myth #4 “I’m just allergic to some things...otherwise I’m ok” |
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The truth is people with asthma need to carry their blue inhaler for emergencies only. Daily preventers will keep symptoms at bay.
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The truth is avoiding 'triggers' can reduce symptoms and taking a blue inhaler, can help to provide short-term relief but they don’t address the underlying problem - inflammation.
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Other Asthma Right Care (ARC) Resources
The nine processes to achieve ARC |
Practice and Pharmacy Posters |
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In this article for Primary Care Respiratory Academy, Noel Baxter describes the 9 good care processes developed by a multidisciplinary and integrated respiratory team in Lambeth and Southwark with a novel way to disseminate the measures and show improvement.
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PCRS offer two posters available for download and use in practice surgeries and pharmacies. The posters highlight the benefit of regular preventer inhaler therapy and a reduction in reliance on short -acting reliever inhalers. Both posters recommend talking to the practice nurse or pharmacist if patients feel they are reliant on their reliever inhaler more than three times per week of if asthma symptoms are frequent. |
ARC Playing Cards |
Building Blocks of a Good Asthma Review |
 A set of playing cards (on slides and downloadable PDF) can be a way to trigger conversations with healthcare teams, and between pharmacists and patients regarding the use of/reliance on SABA inhalers |
In this article first published in Primary Care Respiratory Update in 2016 as a poster for primary care and updated for asthma in November 2019 we discuss the building blocks of a good asthma review focusing on:
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