People with Asthma

AD HOC is the abbreviation we have chosen for our full study title: Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of A Digital social intervention for people with troublesome astHma prOmoted by primary care Clinicians. It means when necessary or needed

Asthma is a very common long-term condition, which affects 4.3 million adults in the UK. More than a third of them experience troublesome asthma symptoms and many experience anxiety. We need to find better ways of helping people to self-manage their asthma symptoms, to improve their quality of life. We think that engaging with an asthma online health community could be one method of helping, through providing practical information and support from other people who have experience of asthma, so we are testing that with this research.

The AD HOC programme is funded by the National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Project Reference Number NIHR202037).

We will be working with GP surgeries, who will invite patients registered with them who have asthma. We are also inviting some of the general practice staff to contribute to the research. If you have asthma and would be interested in taking part, you need to check whether your GP surgery is taking part as we can only recruit patients via their GP.

There are several parts to the AD HOC study.

In the first part, we are asking asthma patients, GPs and nurses for their input and feedback on the intervention we will test and the survey we will use to recruit patients. This will involve around 30 patients from 3 GP surgeries.

In the second part, we will send a survey about asthma symptoms, quality of life and online health communities to all the asthma patients registered with up to 6 GP surgeries. The survey will include an invitation to take part in the intervention.

In the third part, patients who said they would like to take part in the intervention will have a consultation with their practice nurse, who will give them a login for the Asthma UK online health community and explain to them how they can engage with it and how it might be beneficial to them. After 6 months, we will contact these patients to ask them some follow-up questions about their asthma symptoms, quality of life and engaging with the online health community. This will involve about 50 patients from up to 6 GP surgeries.

If these 3 ‘preliminary’ phases all go well, then we will proceed to a larger ‘trial’ in which we will recruit 50 GP surgeries, who will send the survey to all their asthma patients, and from among these, patients who say they would like to take part will have a consultation with their practice nurse or GP. At this point, they will be randomly assigned to receive the intervention (the login for the Asthma UK online health community and encouragement to engage with it) or their normal care (i.e. no intervention). We will follow up these patients after 12 months. This trial will involve about 500 patients.

In the context of the AD HOC study, an intervention is an action taken with the aim of improving a medical condition – in this case, troublesome asthma. Our intervention involves a consultation with the practice nurse, in which they give the patient a login for the Asthma UK online health community and explain to them how they can engage with it and how it might be beneficial to them. The exact nature of our intervention will be decided following the input and feedback received from asthma patients, GPs and practice nurses in phase 1 of the programme.

In part one, we will make an audio recording of group discussions and will take the feedback and ideas from these to finalise our study intervention and survey design. We are asking for participants’ contact information, in order that we can arrange the group discussions/interviews, but this information will not be retained.

In part two, the survey will include questions on asthma symptoms, quality of life and online health communities, as well as personal characteristics, such as gender, age group, and ethnic background. No personal identifiable information (e.g. name, contact details) will be requested and the researchers will not be able to identify any individual respondents.

For part three, patients who would like to participate in the intervention will need to provide their contact information, in order for them to be contacted about taking part, but this will not be retained beyond the duration of the study. The intervention and the 6-month follow up will include questions about their asthma symptoms, quality of life and engaging with the online health community. 

AD HOC is led by researchers from the Wolfson Institute of Population Health at Queen Mary University of London, with collaborators from the University of Cambridge, University of Nottingham, City University London, University of Surrey, and St George’s University of London, our charity partner Asthma + Lung UK, and our industry partner HealthUnlocked.

We will also be working closely with GP surgeries in East and North London.

Find out more about our research team based at Queen Mary University of London on our About Us page.

When each part of the study is completed, we will publish/present the results in academic journals/conferences and on appropriate media outlets, so that other researchers or interested parties can see them. We will be adding updates on study progress and any publications to the News and Events page of our website. Please note that no individual participant will be identifiable in any presentations or published material stemming from this study.