The DEFINE Study
Development and Evaluation of an online FeNO-guided asthma management INtervEntion in primary care
Contact the DEFINE team
We are a multidisciplinary group of researchers and patient representatives funded by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research investigating whether measuring FeNO in GP surgeries can improve management of patients with asthma.
Email: define@phc.ox.ac.uk
- The DEFINE study will help health care professionals in GP surgeries provide a more personalised approach to managing patients’ asthma by using FeNO to guide decisions about their treatment.
- Around 5.4 million people in the UK receive treatment for asthma. However, although more and more asthma medications are being prescribed each year, numbers of serious asthma attacks are not going down.
- To help prevent serious asthma attacks, we need to make sure the right treatments are given to the right people in the right amounts. A breath test called fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) can help us do this by telling us how much inflammation (swelling) there is in someone’s airways.
INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERVENTION
Our intervention involves a simple breath test to measure Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO).
Patients with a higher FeNO have more inflammation in their airways. These patients are more likely to have an asthma attack if their inflammation remains untreated.
FeNO is already measured in patients with severe asthma who are seen in hospital clinics. However, very few GP surgeries routinely use FeNO to help them monitor treatment.
We are designing an intervention to support health care professionals and patients with using FeNO during asthma reviews in primary care.
The intervention will offer the following tools:
- An online training tool to support health care professionals in how to measure and interpret FeNO.
- A digital FeNO-guided management algorithm to personalise asthma care.
- Information materials for patients on FeNO and its role in asthma management.
Study Updates
We are working with GP Practices to invite asthma patients to have a FeNO test during their asthma review, and then tell us what it was like. This will help us understand how to best to support patients and healthcare professionals to use FeNO testing to support better asthma management.
The DEFINE study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Grant Reference RP-PG-0618-20002).
This study has been reviewed and given favourable opinion by North West - Greater Manchester East Research Ethics Committee. The reference number is 21/NW/0078”.
Who can take part?
- Asthma patients aged 12 years or older;
- Health care professionals who perform asthma reviews in an NHS primary care setting.