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Abstract This study was carried out at Chest Department (outpatient sections), Zagazig University Hospital on 220 adult patients labeled and managed as bronchial asthma in a trial to assess a- how they were diagnosed , b- what treatment have been prescribed to them by chest physicians and to detect if they follow GINA guidelines or not. For the selected cases in this study the following was done: Their diagnosis was reviewed if it is matched with GINA guidelines or not by a constructed questionnaire quoted from Attia, (1997) including asking them about: Personal history, Chest complaint. Past history. Family history of bronchial asthma or atopic disease. Associated medical problems. Examination done to them by their chest physicians. Chest X-ray. Pulmonary functions (spirometry and/or peak expiratory flow) done to them by their chest physicians. Drugs that were prescribed and their side effects. Frequency of their asthma related hospital admissions during the past 12 months. Patient education. Assessment of patients compliance with asthma medication was done by The Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ): a validated six-item questionnaire to assess asthma control over the past week. Items address: a) How frequently the patient was woken by their asthma. b) How bad their symptoms were when they woke up. c) How limited they were in their activities. d) How much shortness of breath they had. e) How much of the time they wheezed. f) The average number of puffs of short-acting bronchodilator they used each day. Patients respond to each item on a 7 point scale (0-6) and a mean score is calculated. Patients with a mean score of >1.5 were considered to have poorly controlled asthma (Juniper et al., 2006). Then after the diagnosis has been reviewed, prescriptions to the selected patients by their chest physicians were reviewed if they were matched with GINA guidelines or not. In this study the followings were found: 1. Among Asthmatic patients, only 0.6% of asthmatic females are smoker; while 21% of asthmatic males are smoker. 5.9% of Asthmatic patients are smokers; while 94.1% are non- smoker. There is a statistically highly significant difference. 2. The majority of patients (81.3%) were advised to do CXR while (12.2%) were advised to do PEFR and spirometry. There is a statistically highly significant difference between patients who were advised to do the investigation and those who weren’t advised to do it. 3. Corticosteroids and β2 agonist were prescribed to all bronchial asthma patients by their chest physicians. |