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. 2001 Oct 27;323(7319):962. doi: 10.1136/bmj.323.7319.962

Box 2.

: Personal influences on asthma control among south Asian and white patients

  • Controlling asthma and coping with exacerbations
  • “I can't do anything on my own will.”
  • What do you do to control [your asthma]? “I go to my daughter's.”
  • What does your GP say about your illness? “He says, ‘I will treat, have faith in God.’ ”
  • 49 year old Punjabi Hindu woman
  • When you get an asthma attack what do you do? “I don't do anything, I come here . . . You telephone, and the ambulance comes.”
  • 60 year old Punjabi Hindu woman
  • “I had a bad attack, probably three years ago, and then I stopped smoking and I've completely changed my life around. But since then I've managed my asthma better than I ever have done, you know.”
  • 32 year old white man
  • Concept of asthma prevention medication
  • What do you do to control it? “Ventolin.”
  • Do you use any other one? “I have the brown but I only use the blue one.”
  • How long have you had the brown one? “I don't have the date—two or three years.”
  • Do you know what the two medicines do? “That one [brown] you don't have an attack the doctor told me.”
  • 40 year old Pakistani Muslim woman
  • “Half of these medicines they give you here for asthma, you've got to take them on a regular basis . . . Becotide, now that's a preventative . . . you're supposed to use that all the time, you can't just use that and think, ‘I’ve got an attack coming on, I'd better use it.' It's too late . . . take like an 'eadache, where you think, ‘I’ll take a tablet for me 'eadache and it'll get rid of it.' With asthma, I think asthma's an illness on its own, you've got to keep your airwaves [airways] open all the time”
  • 58 year old white man
  • Concept of systemic corticosteroids in asthma exacerbations
  • “I took a big dose of steroids because that is how I have been told to handle it.”
  • 45 year old white woman (a)
  • “Cortisone or something, that is one wonderful thing. That is something out of this world because within 20 minutes you think, ‘cor that’s good stuff, I can breathe again.' ”
  • 58 year old white man
  • Confidence in general practitioners
  • “He's brilliant. He's got an asthma nurse, he's got a diabetic clinic . . . he knows all my history . . . He seems to have more time because he knows you better.”
  • 60 year old white woman (a)
  • “When the medicine I need I go there, and if I have a big problem I go there, but my GP doesn't help much, he doesn't help me in many things now.”
  • 60 year old Keralan Hindu man