Achieving good adherence to inhaled corticosteroids after

The metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) currently available for inhaled Background: corticosteroid delivery do not offer an integrated dose counter; therefore, it is difficult to evaluate adherence of patients. The present authors developed a linear regression equation using canister weight to calculate the number of doses actuated from the MDIs. This study aimed to assess medical adherence after the integration of regular weighing of the canisters into the routine service. A cohort study was carried out between May 2013 and April 2014. Methods: Children aged less than 8 years with a diagnosis of asthma were recruited. The duration of adherence assessment was 24 weeks. Participants had a regular schedule every 8 weeks to obtain a new FLIXOTIDE® 125 inhaler. Parents were asked to collect the discarded MDI canisters, which were then weighed by a laboratory scale. The weight of each canister was replaced in the regression equation to calculate the number of doses actuated from the MDIs. A Results: total of 52 asthmatic children participated in the study. The median age was 52.7 months. At the end of 24 weeks, 44, 33, and 23 discarded MDI canisters were collected from visits 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The median percentages of adherence were 96.8%, 96.3%, and 96.3%, respectively. In 11 discarded canisters (11%), the remaining medication was more than 30% of the labeled doses. Approximately 90% of the participants had no asthma exacerbation during 24-week study period. High adherence rates were Conclusion: achieved after integration of canister weighing into the asthma care service. Pasuree Sangsupawanich ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. Chuenjit W, Engchuan V, Yuenyongviwat A and Sangsupawanich P. How to cite this article: Achieving good adherence to inhaled corticosteroids after weighing canisters of asthmatic children [version 1; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations] 2017, :266 (doi: ) F1000Research 6 10.12688/f1000research.10710.1 © 2017 Chuenjit W . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the , Copyright: et al Creative Commons Attribution Licence which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver The study was funded by Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University (55-021-01-1-2). Grant information: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 14 Mar 2017, :266 (doi: ) First published: 6 10.12688/f1000research.10710.1 Referee Status: