Exploring the Efficacy of myAsthma in Secondary Care

Summary

Asthma is a common lung condition that causes long-term breathing problems. There is no cure and if uncontrolled can be life threatening. Many asthma deaths are preventable if managed using a personalised treatment plan explaining what to do when unwell, how to manage symptoms and correct inhaler use. Those with controlled asthma are less likely to be admitted to hospital and more likely to have an improved quality of life.

COVID19 has emphasised the need to redesign healthcare delivery to reduce avoidable exposure. Clinical services are turning to remote care including online digital health apps. Digital health offers mechanisms to promote effective asthma care, offer remote individual treatment plans, monitor asthma control in 'real time' and provides information to prevent asthma attacks. Regulatory health guidelines recognise that technology has the potential to improve asthma care and could lead to reductions in NHS service use and improve symptoms.

This study aims to evaluate the delivery of an asthma self-management app 'myAsthma' in a secondary care asthma service. Patients will use the app to input and track their symptoms and report their medication usage. The app provides information on environmental triggers such as air quality to better prepare asthma sufferers in preventing an asthma attack. It offers educational videos to improve understanding of asthma, including online training in inhaler technique.

The goals are to increase adherence to and correct use of medication, help patients self-manage dynamically to reduce their risk of an asthma attack and equip healthcare professionals with the data to identify those people at higher risk of an attack.

This is an unblinded randomised controlled trial with two arms: standard care (control) and myAsthma with standard care (intervention). Asthma control will be compared between the groups. It is a single-centre study which will take place in Bradford Teaching Hospital. A minimum of 60 participants will be recruited into the study and randomised on a ratio of 1:1 - 30 in the control arm and 30 in the intervention arm.

Over 6 months outcomes will be measured using a combination of questionnaires and Asthma Control Test Scores (measure of symptom control). The main outcome of this study is to explore the efficacy of this new model of service delivery, whether it can provide an improvement in asthma control test scores, and will lead to a fully powered randomised controlled trial.

Conditions

• Asthma

Interventions

DEVICE

myAsthma

myAsthma is an online digital self-management application to support asthma patients by offering education, inhaler technique, pulmonary rehabilitation, symptoms and medication usage tracking remotely.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• my mhealth Ltd

  lead INDUSTRY

Principal Investigators

• Tom Wilkinson · my mhealth Ltd

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-05-31

Primary Completion

2023-01-31

Completion

2023-04-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations