Background: Although inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting β2-agonists are well-established as the cornerstone of asthma treatment, patient adherence has been consistently shown to be suboptimal. In fact, non-adherence has a negative impact on asthma control, patient quality of life and therapy cost effectiveness. Non-adherence to prescribed treatments appears to be a mostly predominant phenomenon in the asthma population, sensibly limiting patients’ quality of life, and negatively impacting on the overall sustainability of healthcare systems. Electronic devices can reasonably improve patient’s adherence to treatments by providing regular reminders and motivational messages. Moreover, they can collect real-life data on drug usage to retrieve possible patterns associated with increased compliance.
Objective: The Turbu+TM program aims at collecting daily real-life data of drug usage inhaled doses to estimate treatment adherence to Symbicort® (budesonide, formoterol) Turbuhaler®. Additionally, the program can serve to identify possible patterns of medication usage.
Methods: A total of 497 asthma patients were included in the analysis. Patients were prescribed Symbicort® maintenance therapy or Symbicort® Maintenance and on-demand Anti- inflammatory Reliever Therapy (referred as SMART approach). Treatment adherence was measured every 30 days and calculated over a 360 days follow-up window of time since the recruitment of the patient in the program.
Results: The average medication adherence with the use of Turbu+TM e-device was assessed as 65.9% over the entire follow-up time. Adherence was significantly increased when Symbicort® was associated with prescribed as on-demand Anti-inflammatory Reliever Therapy (SMART approach).
Conclusion: Our evaluation these observations may highlight an overall incrementation of asthma treatment adherence with the utilization of the Turbu+TM e-device as compared with literature. Asthma patients appear to be more compliant with SMART approaches, reflecting a likely improved control over different types of symptoms compared to other therapeutic options.
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