Smoking status, disease duration, and educational level in females, are related to asthma school participation

Limited data is available on those who do not want to attend an asthma school. Two hundred and forty‐five asthmatics aged 18–65 yrs with an FEV1 >50% predicted who had been seen at our outpatient asthma clinic within the last 3 yrs were invited to participate in an asthma school. The patients were contacted by phone by a nurse, offered a 2 day asthma school without personal costs. Altogether 78% of those contacted answered positively. In a logistic regression analysis including sex, age, smoking status, educational level, asthma duration and own opinion of the disease, the‐adjusted odds ratio (OR) for nonsmokers wanting to participate versus smokers was 4.0 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.8–8.3). The corresponding figure for patients with a recent asthma attack was 3.4 (95% CI: 1.5–7.6) compared to those without. For every 10 yr duration of disease the OR for wanting to take part in the asthma school increased by 1.6 (95% CI: 1.0–2.3). When analysing males and females separately, highly educated females were less willing to take part, while an opposite tendency was present in males. In conclusion those interested in taking part in an asthma school were characterized by highly motivated nonsmokers with long duration of disease and with a recent asthma attack, and not being highly educated females.