Taking medication faithfully over a regular and cumulative period, rather than simply taking more medication, is key to improving symptom control in asthma, says a latest study. The study conducted by a team led by Prof. Cindy Thamrin, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the University of Sydney and research head at the Airway Physiology and Imaging Group, has found that longer time adherence to asthma medication improves symptom control in asthmatic adults. The researchers said that in this study they wanted to capture specific aspects of medication intake, for instance skipping doses vs taking less medication, and discovering if there are any patterns over time.  

The researchers analyzed data from a previously published cluster-randomized controlled trial of 143 patients with poorly controlled asthma despite treatment with a moderate-high dose of inhaled corticosteroid and long-acting beta agonist. Based on adherence metrics, the researchers identified two main patient clusters; one cluster included patients with high time adherence (n = 75) and the other cluster included patients with low time adherence (n = 23). Both patients with high and low time adherence had similar asthma symptom control at 2 months, patients with high time adherence had a lower subsequent decline in the Asthma Control Test score over 2 to 6 months (score, 1 vs. – 2; P = .012) and had better asthma symptom control by 6 months (score, 20 vs. 17; P = .034).  The team said that they performed novel data analytics on this pool of information to reach the conclusion that taking medication faithfully over a cumulative period of time was more important for improving symptom control over 6 months.