^{2nd Middle East Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Conference}

Asthma is considered a public health problem, with an estimated 235 million people currently living with asthma globally, according to the World Health Organisation(1). However, there is a lack of evidence to inform the best way to organise structured asthma care in practice (2). In order to improve asthma management and control, the current levels of asthma control and management need to be evaluated in order to determine enablers for change. This study involved a total of 17 semistructured, face-to-face or telephone interviews with stakeholders including, for example: pharmacists and asthma consultant. Interview transcripts were analysed by thematic analysis. Seven key themes relating to asthma control and management were identified. Overall, participants felt that many adult asthma patients within their health care settings are poorly controlled and for several reasons including: poor inhaler technique, overtreatment and under treatment, poor medicine adherence – especially with preventer inhalers –, patient education and the current diagnosis pathway. The participants suggested that adult asthma patient treatment outcomes could be improved by providing better patient education, involving the patients in their treatment plan and improving the monitoring and diagnosis of asthma patients through multidisciplinary work. Interviewees felt that there were opportunities to utilise community pharmacy resources to improve asthma management and control by targeting certain adult asthma patient groups. The participants suggested many asthma patient groups, including for example: controlled asthma patients and young adult asthma patients. Further research will be performed to characterise asthma patient groups that could be targeted by community pharmacy and to develop a new care model for asthma patients.