Evaluation of knowledge and treatment adherence among asthmatic patients attending the clinics in selected peripheral hospitals of Batticaloa District

Abstract

Introduction: Asthma is a chronic disease which is a life threating condition if not controlled properly. The effective management and control of the disease and prevention of severe acute attacks depend on patients’ knowledge and adherence to medication. Therefore, assessing the influence of knowledge and treatment adherence of the patients will reveal the status ofcontrol of their disease. Objectives: To assess the knowledge and treatment adherence among asthma patients in selected peripheral hospitals in Batticaloa. Methodology: This is a cross sectional descriptive hospital based study carried out over 12 months among asthma patients attending the asthma clinics in 3 Base hospital, Eravur, Base hospital, Kattankudy and Divisional hospital, Arayampathy. Sample size was 175 asthma patients and data collection was done by the researches after obtaining informed consent. After completing data collection, the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used for entering, analyzing and interpretation of data. Significant test was set as p<0.05 as the significant level. Result: The study took place among 175 patients. Here, 30.9% were male and 69.1% were female. 46.29% of the participants had a good knowledge. Higher level of education was found to have among the age group between 40 and 59 (20.6%) and among respondants who have had a higher level of education (19.4%). Majority of the population had a good level of treatment adherence (79.43%).Conclusion: The study demonstrated that knowledge and treatment adherence among asthmatic patients were good.