Table 5.
PICO search strategy
| PICO | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Population | South Asian communities (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi etc.), or Black populations (African, Caribbean or Other) asthma patients, their parents/carers, healthcare or lay professionals. The search considered all population ages and countries |
| Intervention | Asthma self-management interventions in any healthcare, community or remote settings. We used the self-management definition of the US Institute of Medicine: “The tasks that individuals must undertake to live with one or more chronic conditions. These tasks include having the confidence to deal with medical management, role management and emotional management of their conditions”60 |
| Comparator | Asthma patients, parents/carers of children with asthma, healthcare or lay professionals supporting asthma patients, who did not receive asthma self-management intervention |
| Outcomes | Outcomes of interest were:1. Clinical outcomes: (i) current asthma control was defined as the degree to which different asthma manifestations were reduced/eliminated by treatment. Here, main categories include clinical-asthma control level (ii) future risk of adverse events and unscheduled healthcare utilisation. All clinical outcomes are aligned with the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society Task Force standardised definitions572. Process outcomes: any outcome that occurred because of certain steps in a process, e.g., knowledge and self-efficacy3. Behavioural outcomes: outcomes related to behaviour, e.g., medicine adherence and inhaler technique |
| Exclusion | 1. All studies that did not explicitly specify population were excluded e.g., trials that did not provide details on which ethnic group they are referring to when they used broad terms such as ‘West Indians’ or ‘Asians’2. Studies of multiple ethnic populations that did not provide outcome data separately for the South Asian and the Black ethnic groups or subgroups were excluded3. Trials studying multiple illnesses but did not provide separate outcome data for asthma were excluded |