Socioeconomic status is associated with healthcare seeking behaviour and disease burden in young adults with asthma – A nationwide cohort study

INTRODUCTION: Specialist management of asthma has been shown to associate with socioeconomic status (SES). However, little is known about the influence of SES on care burden in universal healthcare settings. METHODS: Patients aged 18–45 years using inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) were followed in national databases. Impact of asthma was investigated using negative binomial regression adjusted for age, sex, comorbidity, and GINA 2020 Step. Uncontrolled asthma was defined as >600 annual SABA puffs, ≥2 prednisolone courses and/or ≥1 hospitalization. RESULTS: A total of 60,534 (55% female, median age 33 (IQR 25–39)) patients were followed for 10.1 years (IQR 5.2–14.3)). Uncontrolled asthma resulted in 6.5 and 0.51 additional annual contacts to primary care and pulmonologists, respectively. Unscheduled and primary care burden was dependent on SES, increasing with rural residence, lower education, income and receiving welfare. Differences in planned respiratory care were slight, only seen among divorced, low income- or welfare recipients. Lower SES was consistently associated with an increased utilization of SABA and prednisolone. No dose–response relationship between ICS use and SES could be identified. CONCLUSION: Lower SES in asthma is a risk factor for a predominance of unscheduled care and adverse outcomes, warranting further attention to patients’ background when assessing asthma care.