Abstract
Patients with asthma are generally instructed to keep an asthma diary and measure their daily peak flow, so that they can grasp their disease condition and manage asthma symptoms by themselves. However, the data from an asthma diary is not too reliable because patients often miss entries in the diary and make entries all at once not everyday, furthermore the time of measuring peak flow is often varied. In recent years, electronic diary and peak flow meter have begun to be used in the West to raise the reliability of the data obtained in clinical studies. We performed a feasibility study involving Japanese children with bronchial asthma (age 5 to 15) to investigate the acceptability of an electronic diary and electronic peak flow meter. As a result, compliance regarding entries in the electronic diary on awakening and at bedtime was good (>94.0%). Most of the patients reported high convenience of their use, although some of them pointed out the need for further improvement in training and support systems. The results suggest the usefulness of an electronic diary and an electronic peak flow meter in clinical studies and research of pediatric asthma.
