Use of a postal questionnaire to estimate the likely under-diagnosis of asthma-like illness in adults.
BACKGROUND
Asthma is thought to be under-diagnosed.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate how many adults in two practices may have unknown asthma-like illness.


METHODS
Results from a postal respiratory questionnaire, sent to 11,206 adults registered with two practices, were linked with practice records to identify patients who may have unknown asthma-like illness.


RESULTS
The questionnaire replies were almost identical in both practices; 30.4% of respondents [95% confidence interval (CI) 29.4-31.4] reported wheezing and 14.1% (95% CI 13.3-14.9) had been woken by breathlessness during the previous year. Using a simple scoring system, 1112 (13.8%) of the respondents were judged possibly to have asthma-like illness; 529 (6.6%) had not previously been diagnosed as having asthma and had not received asthma treatments.


CONCLUSIONS
The frequency of asthma-like symptoms was high. A large proportion of adults in the practices may have an unknown asthma-like illness which warrants further evaluation.
Frank
P
P
Royal College of General Practitioners Manchester Research Unit.
Ferry
S
S
Moorhead
T
T
Hannaford
P
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires