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Review
. 2024 Mar 5:18:555-564.
doi: 10.2147/PPA.S445534. eCollection 2024.

Medication Adherence in Children with Asthma

Paddy McCrossan  1 , Michael D Shields  2 , James C McElnay  3
Affiliations
Review

Medication Adherence in Children with Asthma

Paddy McCrossan et al. Patient Prefer Adherence. .

Abstract

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood. If untreated, asthma can lead to debilitating daily symptoms which affect quality of life, but more importantly can lead to fatal asthma attacks which unfortunately still occur globally. The most effective treatment strategy for controlling asthma is for the patient to follow a personalised asthma action plan (PAAP) which will invariably include regular use of an inhaled corticosteroid. To examine medication adherence in children with asthma, we collated recent evidence from systematic reviews in this area to address the following 5 key questions; What is adherence? Is there evidence that children are not adhering to preventer medication? Why is adherence poor and what are the barriers to adherence? Does good adherence improve outcomes in asthma? And lastly, how can treatment adherence be improved?

Keywords: adherence; asthma; children; inhaled corticosteroid; inhaler.

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Conflict of interest statement

The Queen’s University Belfast spin-out company Continga® provides vDOT services in the UK (https://www.continga.co.uk/). MS and JMcE are co-founders and directors of Continga®. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

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