The Relation of Knowledge, Attitude and Self-Management Behaviors in Asthmatic Patients with Controlling Asthma

Incidence of asthma is 5.5% in Iran. Patients with asthma need frequent self-management in order to control the symptoms maintaining natural lung activity. The aim of this study is to study the effective factors of self-management behaviors, and its relation with controlling asthma in asthmatic patients in Kashan.

Simple sampling was employed to recruit 102 asthmatic patients referring to asthmatic therapeutic centers of Kashan, Iran. A descriptive, cross-sectional design was conducted and the data were collected using a survey questionnaire based on knowledge and attitude factors and self-management behavior constructions and asthma control test. SPSS software for Windows was used for analyzing data (t -test, ANOVA, correlation and regression).

The respondents acquired 46.8% of total asthma knowledge score, 82.2% of attitude score. Respondents with acquisition 57.7% of total asthma self-management behavior score placed in middle class. The acquired score in asthma control is low class (40.28%). Negative relation between knowledge and asthma control was observed.

The results showed that if the situation of knowledge and attitude factors are better, the self-management behaviors in asthmatic patients will be better and if the situation self-management behavior be better, asthma control will be better, too. Negative relation between knowledge and asthma control needs more researches.