Understanding and influencing primary care professionals’ perceptions of asthma management in Greece: Using the Asthma Right Care programme

Introduction: Implementing asthma guideline recommendations is challenging and may vary across different healthcare professional (HCP) groups. Asthma Right Care (ARC) is an IPCRG initiative, a social movement to mobilize change in the management of asthma by developing tools to start conversations between people with asthma and HCPs including pharmacists and GPs about over-reliance on episodic care, starting with short-acting beta-agonists (SABAs). The aim of our study was to explore Greek HCPs’ perspectives on current provision of care and assessment of willingness to improve implementation of recommended guidelines using tools of the ARC programme. Methods: A convenience sample of 30 primary care pharmacists and 10 general practitioners was recruited in Heraklion (September 2020 to April 2021) and responded to a questionnaire investigating attitudes and behaviors towards implementation of asthma guidelines. A qualitative survey followed to complement the survey with the HCPs’ feedback on the content, efficacy, and applicability of the ARC tools. Results: A range of practical challenges were faced by HCPs in primary care in implementing asthma guidelines; lack of time and education, high workload, patients’ attitudes and poor communication were highlighted as the most important challenges contributing to poor treatment, SABA over-reliance and inadequate follow-up of asthma patients. However, the majority of HCPs acknowledged the value of the ARC programme and also had a positive attitude towards educational programs for asthma management. Conclusion: Despite the challenges identified in implementing asthma guidelines it seems that the willingness to have conversations using ARC tools that lead to commitment to tackling longstanding problems could potentially improve provision of asthma care, patient medication adherence and clinical outcomes.