We are delighted to announce the launch of the IMPlementing IMProved Asthma self-management as RouTine (IMP²ART) study, which aims to help general practices embed supported self-management into routine asthma care.
A flagship project of the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research, IMP²ART is an NIHR-funded programme of work with the project set-up kindly supported by Asthma UK.
Three key steps to supported self-management
We know that people with asthma are well placed to manage their condition themselves and that this is most successful when there is a combination of three things in place to help:
- Patient education
- Professional training
- Organisational support
Supported self-management addresses all three of these components together. This combined approach has been found to be much more effective at helping people to manage their asthma than when targeting the individual components alone.
Despite this, it is not a routine intervention in asthma care – several barriers have prevented its introduction in general practices.
Developing a new approach to enable the use of supported self-management
The IMP²ART study will develop, refine and test an implementation strategy to help general practices across the UK to embed supported self-management into routine asthma care.
This will involve addressing each of the three components, by:
- Developing effective resources to support patients
- Providing in-house and online training for professionals
- Helping practices to change their organisation to prioritise supported self-management
Following the development of the implementation strategy, the IMP²ART team will test it as part of a UK-wide trial.