[Asthma control test (ACT) faultiness and the remediation by peak flow (PEF) measurement at outpatient department].
BACKGROUND
To grasp the asthma patients' control level, an asthma control test (ACT), an easy questionnaire, is getting to be used as the alternative method of asthma diary recording. ACT is based on the patient's 4-week memory and the accuracy is not confirmed thoroughly


METHODS
Two hundred and eighty three visits of 88 asthmatics (male 29, female 59) were subjected. The accuracy of ACT to detect "truly good control" was analyzed by comparing with the asthma diary (symptoms and PEF were recorded).


RESULTS
Sensitivities, specificities (chi square values) for extraction of truly good control were 0.88, 0.42 (23.7) by the threshold of ACT > or =23, 0.77, 0.51 (18.1) by ACT > or =24, and 0.54, 0.69 (12.9) by ACT=25, significantly (p<0.001, respectively). When PEF% predicted > or =80% was added as the second factor, the chi square values improved to 29.9 by ACT > or =23 and to 30.3 by ACT > or =24 significantly (p<0.001, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
Addition of PEF measurement on visit on ACT may help understanding the asthmatic patient condition.
Ueno
Shiro
S
Department of Respiratory Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Kawasaki medical School.
Obase
Yasushi
Y
Ohfuji
Takashi
T
Shimizu
Hiroki
H
Sugiu
Tadaaki
T
Ohue
Yoshihiro
Y
Yagi
Shin-ichi
S
Mouri
Keiji
K
Miyashita
Naoyuki
N
Kobashi
Yoshihiro
Y
Oka
Mikio
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D008875:Middle Aged; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital; D010366:Peak Expiratory Flow Rate; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires