Background: The American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (ACAAI) developed a questionnaire, the Life Quality (LQ) Test, for use in its Nationwide Asthma Screening Program. The test is intended as a tool to help individuals with breathing problems determine if they have asthma or, for those already diagnosed with asthma, if their asthma is under control. We attempted to assess whether the LQ Test was a valid tool for use in the screening program. Objective: The objective of this study was to validate the LQ Test by determining whether a high score on the LQ Test is a positive predictor of a clinical diagnosis of asthma. Methods: The 20-question LQ Test was prospectively distributed and self-administered to new patients on their first visit to an asthma and allergy clinic. Total LQ scores were recorded for each patient as the sum of all positive 'yes' responses to the test. All patients were subsequently diagnosed by an allergist as having asthma or not having asthma. The LQ Test also was administered to a group of individual patients who were seen in a dental office. This group of patients, who had no known breathing problems, served as a control. Results: The clinic patients who were subsequently diagnosed with asthma had the highest average LQ score (9.31), 3.9 times higher than the average score for clinic patients diagnosed as not having asthma (2.39), and 8 times higher than the average score for the control group (1.15). Conclusion: Higher LQ scores correlate with a higher probability of a positive diagnosis, initially making the LQ Test questionnaire a valid tool to help predict which individuals are more likely to be diagnosed with asthma.

We compared the effectiveness of personalized asthma self-management recommendations with that of a group self-management program. We assigned each of 34 asthma patients randomly to one of three conditions: individualized asthma self-management, group asthma self-management, and control. We derived individualized self-management recommendations from patient recordings of asthma occurrence, asthma precipitants, and peak expiratory flow rate made during a 3-month period. The group program we used was the Wheezers Anonymous program. As compared to a control group of patients who received no self-management training, the patients in both the individualized and group condition evidenced improvement of pulmonary function, as measured daily with a home peak flow meter. The improvement was equivalent for patients in the two conditions. Patients in the individualized condition also exhibited a drop in frequency of asthma attacks, but patients in the group condition did not. We concluded that individualized asthma self-management is effective in reducing symptoms of asthma.

The Knowledge, Attitude, and Self-Efficacy Asthma Questionnaire (KASE-AQ) is a paper-and-pencil instrument that was developed to allow physicians, behavioral scientists, and other health care personnel to assess asthma patients' knowledge regarding asthma, their attitudes about their asthma (including their willingness to cooperate with the physician in managing asthma), and their self-efficacy regarding their perceived ability to control the disorder. The KASE-AQ assesses changes in these patient variables following a particular intervention. The KASE-AQ proved to be reliable and internally consistent, and a factor analysis revealed presence of three subscales in the questionnaire (knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy about asthma). Following asthma education and self-management training, experimental group subjects showed significant improvements in knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. Waiting-list control subjects showed similar improvements following training. Both groups' scores at 3-month follow-up remained significantly higher than their baseline scores on all 3 variables.

The development, testing, and applicability of an instrument, the Life Activities Questionnaire for Adult Asthma is described that can be used to assess activity restriction in adults with asthma. It explains how items for the instrument were selected to insure the validity of the developed instrument. The reliability of the questionnaire is also discussed. The result is a valid and reliable paper-and-pencil instrument that should have wide applicability as a component of quality of life measurement. This instrument has potential for functional use in clinical settings, research environments, and policy-making procedures.

The Asthma Problem Behavior Checklist (APBC) has proved to be an accurate and invaluable instrument for pinpointing potential behavioral problems in children with the disorder. This article presents the Revised Asthma Problem Behavior Checklist (RAPBC). The value of the RAPBC is that: (a) it has proven reliability when tested with asthmatic adults; (b) the change from a dichotomous yes/no format, used in the APBC, to a 5-point Likert-type answer format adds greater sensitivity to the instrument; and (c) data gathered with the RAPBC compare favorably to information gathered in two previous studies with the APBC. Considering the reliability and validity of the RAPBC, it should prove useful in both clinical and research settings.

According to Bandura, a person's expectations that a favorable outcome will follow a particular behavior are not sufficient to promote the occurrence of the behavior; the person must also believe that he or she will be effective at performing the behavior. The latter is referred to as self-efficacy. It has become a major focus in assessing patient performance of skills required to manage their illness. The present paper describes the development, testing, and applicability of an instrument for assessing self-efficacy in asthmatic patients. It notes that the Asthma Self-Efficacy Scale is not only a reliable paper-and-pencil instrument, but that it has a wide potential applicability throughout health care settings in measuring self-efficacy in asthmatic patients. The Asthma Self-Efficacy Scale is included.

The efficacy of an adult asthma self-management program, Wheezers Anonymous (WA), was tested utilizing 79 adult asthmatic patients. Subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment or waiting-list control group. Baseline data gathered included measures of symptom severity, health-care utilization, knowledge of asthma, attitudes about asthma, and self-efficacy. All subjects completed the same measures 1, 2, and 3 months following the WA intervention. Knowledge about asthma increased in the treatment group relative to the waiting-list controls; the number of attacks decreased in the treatment group only, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the WA program.