Abstract:
Introduction: Asthma is a chronic, reversible airway obstruction that causes difficulty of
breathing due to the constriction of the bronchi and mucus secretions.Despite the growing
importance of self-management and its obvious relationship with positive health outcomes, the
uptake and use of self-management among asthmatic patients is not well understood.
Objectives: To assess self-management practice and associated factors among adult ast hmatic
patients on chronic follow up at public referral hospitals, south west Ethiopia, 2022.
Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was employed among 274
asthmatic patients on follow-up care at public tertiary hospitals from August 1 to September
30, 2022. All asthmatic patients who were registered at the chronic follow-up unit of each
hospital and fulfilled inclusion criteria were included and interviewed consecutively. The data
were collected using a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire and entered into
EpiData version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Then, descriptive statistics
were done to summarize the participant’s characteristics. Bivariable and multivariable logistic
regression were used to identify variables associated with asthma self-management practice,
and variables with a p-value of 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Finally, tables,
graphs, and text were used to present the data.
Result: A total of 274 patients with asthma were interviewed, and (45.26%) of them had good
self-management practices. Age older than 55years (AOR = 0.31, 95% CI: 0.10, 0.96),
drinking alcohol (AOR = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.10, 0.65), chewing khat (AOR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.22,
0.97), borderline and above anxiety level (AOR = 0.26, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.60), and poor social
support (AOR = 0.14, 95% CI: 0.07, 0.28) were negatively associated with good asthma self management practice.
Conclusion and recommendation: The finding revealed that four of every nine asthmatic
patients had good asthma self-management practices. Age, alcohol consumption, khat
chewing, anxiety, and social support showed a statistically significant association with asthma
self-management practice. Ongoing self-management support and collaborative target
interventions aimed at improving asthma self-management practices and identified factors are
very crucial.
