Healthcare costs of asthma co-morbidities
PhD student, Karim el Ferkh, has published a protocol detailing plans for his systematic review into the healthcare costs of asthma co-morbidities in the journal BMJ Open.
He says
"Asthma is a highly prevalent condition that is responsible for considerable morbidity and, in some cases, mortality. Asthma management and control can be influenced, among other things, by the presence of other comorbid conditions. Our recently completed scoping review investigating the prevalence of comorbidities among asthma patients identified a number of conditions including, but not limited to depression, anxiety, rhinitis, gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and obesity, may occur more frequently in people with asthma than in those without, leading to potential additional difficulties in asthma management. These comorbid conditions may be associated with poor functionality, poor asthma control, impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and increased health utilisation, and controlling these may improve asthma outcomes.
The findings of these international studies vary depending on the population targeted and the particular comorbid conditions studied. Whilst these studies have now assessed the healthcare, and economic burden associated with asthma comorbidity, there has hitherto been no systematic attempt to synthesise and summarise the evidence that has emanated from existing studies.
This review builds on our earlier work, which involved a scoping review of the recent landscape of asthma comorbidity; the purpose of the current work is to identify, appraise and synthesise the evidence on healthcare costs associated with asthma comorbidity."
Full text
Read the full protocol in the open access journal, BMJ Open
Cite this paper as
Ferkh KE, Nwaru BI, Griffiths C, et al
Healthcare costs of asthma comorbidities: a systematic review protocol
BMJ Open 2017;7:e015102. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-015102