Portable spirometry promising for home monitoring of asthmain young adults

Self-monitoring asthma control is a key component of asthma management. A recent study in the Journal of Asthma has reported usability and acceptability of portable spirometry among young adults with asthma being effective and portable spirometry offers a practical solution to monitoring airway narrowing at home.

Asthma is a major noncommunicable disease (NCD), affecting both children and adults, and is the most common chronic disease among children. Asthma affected an estimated 262 million people in 2019 and caused 455 000 deaths. Inhaled medication can control asthma symptoms and allow people with asthma to lead a normal, active life.

Ross Bindler and team aimed to determine if self-administered spirometry is feasible and acceptable in young adults with asthma and whether regular monitoring resulted in improved airway function as measured by forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1).

A total of 67 young adults (18-26 years) with self-reported asthma participated in a clinical trial during wildfire season which measured FEV1 as an outcome measure. Data was collected at baseline, week 4, and week 8 using a portable spirometer linked to a smartphone application. A subset of intervention participants completed spirometry twice daily. Acceptability of self-administered spirometry was evaluated after the trial among participants that volunteered to submit a survey and be interviewed.

The key findings of the study are

•All 67 participants completed their scheduled spirometry readings which declined to 94.0% (n = 63) at week 4 and 86.6% (n = 58) at week 8.

•Daily readings were completed 83.2% of the time in the mornings and 84.3% of the time in the evenings.

•Mean FEV1 values were lower than predicted values, but above the lower limit of expected. FEV1 remained steady throughout the study period.

Over two-thirds of participants used the notes feature in the application and described symptoms, asthma triggers, mitigating actions and test-taking issues.

Researchers concluded that young adults in our sample were highly compliant with regular, self-administered spirometry.

Reference: Ross Bindler, Hans C. Haverkamp, Hannah O'Flanagan, Justin Whicker, Ana G. Rappold, Von Walden & Julie Postma (2022) Feasibility and acceptability of home monitoring with portable spirometry in young adults with asthma, Journal of Asthma, DOI: 10.1080/02770903.2022.2160345.