Development of the Asthma Impairment and Risk Questionnaire (AIRQ)
Published online: May 6, 2020
Uncontrolled asthma is defined in terms of symptom control (impairment) and assessing risk based on a history of asthma exacerbations. Existing tools used by health care providers to assess asthma control in adolescents and adults only evaluate impairment. Thus, there is an unmet need to change how uncontrolled asthma is identified and monitored.
In a research article recently published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, Murphy and colleagues described a newly developed and validated asthma control measure for patients aged 12 years and older: the Asthma Impairment and Risk Questionnaire (AIRQ). This tool, which was designed and tested by a network of 190 scientific experts and primary and specialty care clinicians from across the United States, assesses both current symptom impairment and risk based on prior-year exacerbation history.
The AIRQ was tested in 442 adult and adolescent patients with asthma. Patients responded to 15 pilot AIRQ questions addressing asthma symptoms, social and physical activities, exacerbations, health care utilization, and medication use. Statistical analysis identified which of the 15 questions were most likely to identify a patient’s level of asthma control (well-controlled, not well-controlled, or very poorly controlled); those questions that performed best were selected for inclusion in the final questionnaire.
The final AIRQ has 10 yes-or-no questions: 7 assessing symptom impairment and 3 assessing risk as reflected by exacerbation history. Scores of 0-1 represent well-controlled asthma, 2-4 represent not well-controlled asthma, and 5-10 represent very poorly controlled asthma. Using the validated AIRQ, health care providers and patients can now identify uncontrolled asthma based on both impairment and risk in adolescents and adults and more completely address poor asthma control that often goes unrecognized in clinical practice.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice is an official journal of the AAAAI, focusing on practical information for the practicing clinician.
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