Congratulations to our Academic Clinical Fellow in General Practice Dr Luke Daines, who has recently been awarded a CSO Clinical Academic Training Fellowship.
Commencing today, this fellowship provides an opportunity for Luke to complete a PhD research project focused on deriving and validating a clinical prediction rule for the diagnosis of asthma in primary care.
There have been a number of recent studies highlighting substantial over- and under- diagnosis of asthma in routine clinical practice. The research need for this particular project was identified as a result of Luke's work with the BTS/SIGN asthma guideline (2016).
Professor Hilary Pinnock, Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said about the project:
"This is a very topical, clinically important piece of work, and it is good news that Luke will be continuing to contribute to the research of the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research.”
Further information about this research is included in the project lay summary:
Asthma is common in Scotland, causing considerable illness, healthcare usage, and public expense. Accurate diagnosis is essential for good asthma management. Yet, uncertainty about the best way to diagnose asthma can lead to missed diagnoses and under-treatment, or over-diagnosis leading to unnecessary treatment and healthcare costs.
This project aims to make it easier for doctors and nurses to identify and interpret the important information gathered from a patient suspected of having asthma.
Using an existing research database, we can identify which features predict who has asthma and use this information to develop an asthma prediction ‘rule’. The ‘rule’ will be tested using anonymous routine data from UK general practices and a Netherlands-based asthma referral service. The prediction ‘rule’ will help doctors and nurses make sense of information in a standardised way, improving the accuracy with which asthma is diagnosed. Patients will benefit from being accurately diagnosed and receiving appropriate treatment.
We wish Luke all the best for this significant research project and are delighted for him to continue in sharing his expertise at the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research.
Links
Link to Dr Luke Daines' work on the IMP2ART project
Link to the BTS/SIGN British guideline on the management of asthma