Inadequate medical care is frequent in patients attending emergency departments (EDs) for an asthma exacerbation and this is often associated with strong psychological impact, observes a multicentric prospective observational study. This recent study by researchers from various hospitals and research centres in Paris, Bergen and other cities involved several questionnaires on 182 patients. The findings showed that there is often a lack of proper understanding of the patients’ condition, and questioning the reasons for consulting the ED may help quickly identify patients requiring asthma education and improve their referral. More importantly, the study observed that patients who came to the EDs were unfamiliar with both the disease and associated treatments.