Admission forms for patients with asthma should incude occupation and work-relationship

A patient's occupation seems far from the minds of physicians and nurses seeing patients with acute asthma in emergency and hospital admission services, despite the significance of occupation as a cause of the asthma in 15-20% and the consequences of having poorly controlled asthma in all those in employment. A survey of acute asthma in patients 16-64 years old showed that occupation was recorded in 10-14% when there was no prompt on the admission proformas, increasing to 63% when there was a specific item on the proforma. despite this there were no records of work-relationship in any of the 200 studied.

References

	Ellis PR, Walters GI, Missed opportunities to identify occupational asthma in acute secondary care , Occup Med, 2018;68:56-59,https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqx167

Comments