The ACT and ACQ are comparable asthma control questionnaires. The choice of which questionnaire to use should be informed by considering several factors, such as the intended purpose and setting where the questionnaire will be used, as well as the content, practicality, availability of benchmark scores, and adaptability to multiple administration modes of each questionnaire. One potential limitation of the study is that the data were collected in a clinical setting with limited demographic information. Hence, additional studies are needed to evaluate the psychometric properties of each instrument across demographic and clinical subgroups of the general population.

Currently, patients have to keep track of doses to determine when to replace their metered-dose inhalers (MDIs). This study evaluated the performance and patient satisfaction of a novel MDI with an integrated dose counter. In an open-label study at 38 outpatient centres, patients > or =12 years old with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) received two actuations of fluticasone propionate/salmeterol 125/25 microg (115/21 microg ex-actuator) hydrofluoroalkane (ADVAIR) HFA) via MDI with counter twice a day until all 120 actuations were completed. Concordance between counter and diary recordings in patients who reported use of > or =90% of labelled actuations (completer population, n = 228) was high (discrepancy rate of 0.94%) and the incidence of device firing without changes in counter readings was low (0.13%). Mean expected actuations based on canister weights (114) were slightly lower than mean counter (121) and diary reported actuations (120). Upon study completion, 95% of patients were satisfied with the dose counter and 92% agreed it would help prevent them from running out of medication. Safety assessments (intent-to-treat population, n = 237) indicated that the drug was well tolerated. This integrated MDI counter may help patients maintain better disease control by enabling them to accurately track their medication supply.

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