Follow up on asthmatic patients: What the community pharmacist should know

Asthma has a prevalence of between 1 and 18% depending on the country. In the patient care process, and through the symptoms that it has (dyspnea, cough, wheezing, thoracic oppression), the community pharmacist can give health education to prevent the agents that cause asthma, on how to use the inhaler prescribed by the doctor, explaining the medication to the patient and what their treatment is to get to know their disease better, what signs and symptoms show a lack of control over it, what methods can be used to monitor the evolution of the asthma, to detect a possible lack of effectiveness of the treatment by having symptoms despite using the inhaler correctly, to suspect that a medication is causing the asthma, to review the rest of the medication that is used in case there are interactions that affect the effectiveness as well as the safety of the treatment. There is a significant underdiagnosis of asthma (57,5%), according to the ECRHS, the European Community Respiratory Health Survey. In the community pharmacy, the disease can be screened with the help of a questionnaire validated in children and not validated in adults. This review aims to offer the community pharmacist a practical tool for their everyday task of caring for asthmatic patients.