Background

The 2007 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma provide evidence-based recommendations to improve asthma care. Limited national-level data are available about clinician agreement and adherence to these guidelines.

Objective

To assess clinician-reported adherence with specific guideline recommendations, as well as agreement with and self-efficacy to implement guidelines

Methods

We analyzed 2012 National Asthma Survey of Physicians data for 1412 primary care clinicians and 233 asthma specialists about four cornerstone guideline domains: asthma control, patient education, environmental control, and pharmacologic treatment. Agreement and self-efficacy were measured using Likert scales; two overall indices of agreement and self-efficacy were compiled. Adherence was compared between primary care clinicians and asthma specialists. Logistic regression models assessed the association of agreement and self-efficacy indices with adherence.

Results

Asthma specialists expressed stronger agreement, higher self-efficacy, and greater adherence with guideline recommendations than primary care clinicians. Adherence was low among both groups for specific core recommendations, including written asthma action plan (30.6% and 16.4%, respectively P<.001); home peak flow monitoring, (12.8% and 11.2%, P=.34); spirometry testing, (44.7% and 10.8%, P<.001); and repeated assessment of inhaler technique, (39.7% and 16.8%, P<.001). Among primary care clinicians, greater self-efficacy was associated with greater adherence. For specialists, self-efficacy was associated only with increased odds of spirometry testing. Guideline agreement was generally not associated with adherence.

Conclusions

Agreement with and adherence to asthma guidelines was higher for specialists than primary care clinicians, but was low in both groups for several key recommendations. Self-efficacy was a good predictor of guideline adherence among primary care clinicians but not among specialists.