Impact of Adding a Decision Aid to Patient Education in Adults with Asthma: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Not providing adequate patient education interventions to asthma patients remains a major care gap. To help asthma patients and caregivers discuss inhaled controller medication use, our team has previously developed a decision aid (DA). We sought to assess whether adding this DA to education interventions improved knowledge, decisional conflict, and asthma control among adults with asthma. Methods: A parallel clinical trial (NCT02516449). We recruited adults with asthma, aged 18 to 65 years, prescribed inhaled controller medication to optimize asthma control. Educators randomly allocated participants either to the education + DA or to the education group. At baseline and two-month follow-up, we measured asthma knowledge (primary outcome) with a validated self-administered questionnaire (score –37 to +37). Secondary outcomes included decisional conflict and asthma control. Blinded assessors collected data. Between the two time points, the within- and between-group changes were estimated by generalized linear mixed models. Results: Fifty-one participants (response rate: 53%; age: 44 ± 13 years; women: n = 32) were randomized either to the education + DA group (n = 26) or to the education group (n = 25), and included in statistical analyses. Between baseline and follow-up, mean [95% CI] knowledge scores increased from 21.5 [19.9–23.2] to 25.1 [23.1–27.0] in the education + DA group (P = 0.0002) and from 24.0 [22.3–25.7] to 26.0 [24.0–28.0] in the education group (P = 0.0298). In both of the groups, decisional conflict and asthma control improved. There were no differences between groups. Conclusions: Education improved knowledge, decisional conflict, and asthma control whether the DA was added or not.