The Evaluation of Family Physicians’ Knowledge on the Use of Inhalation Devices

Objective: Nowadays, inhalation techniques have an important role in treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Correct application of inhalation devices is important for optimal therapeutic efficacy. Showing inhalation techniques to patients receiving inhaler therapy in more than one visit reduce the device usage errors. It is important to observe the deficiencies and errors of the patients in the primary health care where the patients frequently admitted. In our study we aimed to evaluate the knowledge of family physians on inhaler device usage in their clinical practice.

Methods: Family physicians who work in primary health care services were visited face to face. Fifty family physicians who were in the institution at visit day and agreed to participate in the study were included in the study. The questionnaire consisting of 15 questions were asked each family physician. Then, seven different inhalation devices were evaluated with 10 step scoring system of inhaler device usage.

Results: Twenty eight (56%) physicians were female and 22 (44%) were male. The mean age was 36.3±6.7 years and mean working time as a family physician was 5.12±2.8 years. Nineteen physicians participated to a meeting about usage of inhaler devices in the past. Average scores for inhaler devices were found 7.96±2.91 for metered-dose inhaler, 7.54±3.93 for discus, 7.28±4.04 for handihaler, 6.38±4.4 for aerolizer, 6.12±4.22 for turbuhaler, 5.98±4 for easyhaler and 5.72±4.59 for sanohaler, respectively. There was no relation between the inhaler devices usage scores and sex, age, duration of being family physician (p>0.05). The average scores of physicians who participated to a training were better than the physicians who didn’t participate for metered-dose inhalers, turbuhaler, aerolizer and handihaler (p=0.049, p=0.05, p=0.013 and p=0.021, respectively).

Conclusion: We thought that training of family physicians for inhaler devices is necessary to improve patients’ compliance and successful treatment.