Helping patients attain and maintain asthma control: reviewing the role of the nurse practitioner

Nurse practitioners (NPs) have a unique opportunity as frontline caregivers and patient educators to recognize, assess, and effectively treat the widespread problem of uncontrolled asthma. This review provides a perspective on the role of the NP in implementing the revised National Asthma Education...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare 2011-01, Vol.4 (default), p.299-309
Main Author: Rance, Karen S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asthma
asthma control
asthma medications
education
Mortality
NAEPP guidelines
nurse practitioner
Nurse practitioners
Quality of life
referral
Review
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nurse practitioners (NPs) have a unique opportunity as frontline caregivers and patient educators to recognize, assess, and effectively treat the widespread problem of uncontrolled asthma. This review provides a perspective on the role of the NP in implementing the revised National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) Guidelines put forth by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, thereby helping patients achieve and maintain asthma control. A literature search of PubMed was performed using the terms asthma, nurse practitioner, asthma control, burden, impact, morbidity, mortality, productivity, quality of life, uncontrolled asthma, NAEPP guidelines, assessment, pharmacotherapy, safety. Despite the increased morbidity and mortality and impaired quality of life attributable to uncontrolled asthma, the 2007 NAEPP asthma guidelines are greatly underused. NPs have an opportunity to identify patients at risk and provide enhanced care and education for asthma control. Often, NPs can prescribe medication for and manage these patients, but it is necessary to be able to discern which patients require referral to a specialist.
ISSN:1178-2390
1178-2390
DOI:10.2147/JMDH.S22966