Adherence to National Asthma Guidelines in the Acute Care Setting: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: Peak flow is a crucial but simple test used to categorize the severity of an episode of an acute exacerbation of asthma. It should be regularly done in all the patients who present with asthma acute exacerbation in the emergency department. The British Thoracic Society (BTS)/Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines stipulate peak flow use as one of the main tools to categorize acute asthma into moderate, severe, and life-threatening asthma. The BTS and SIGN guidelines also state peak flow is to be utilized in monitoring the disease and to guide in treating patients with acute asthma. Methods and materials: This study aims to identify the adherence to BTS/SIGN guidelines around the use of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) in assessing the severity of patients presenting with acute exacerbation of asthma in a district general hospital. The retrospective cohort study involved collating data between October 2022 and February 2023 from our hospital electronic system. The data collected about the use of PEFR and whether the patients were being classified by severity in presentation following this was compared to the BTS/SIGN 158 asthma guidelines. Following this, the data analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0 (Released 2012; IBM Corp., Armonk, New York, United States). Results: Data from 92 patients were collated. PEFR was recorded for 29.3% (n=27) of patients and acute exacerbation of asthma severity was documented in merely 17.4% (n=16) patients. Conclusion: The results indicate a significant proportion of the patient cohort analyzed did not have peak flow readings, there is clear room for improvement, and further intervention is needed in order for the department to adhere to the gold standard guidelines (i.e., BTS/SIGN 158), and thus improve the management and monitoring of acute asthma exacerbations. Future directions can include departmental education, posters as a reminder, and prompts on the electronic system used to alert users to check PEFR when a diagnosis of acute asthma exacerbation is documented.