ERS 2022: Association of Short-Acting-Agonist (SABA) Overuse and Risk of COPD Among Adult Asthma Patients

Despite the well-known availability of treatment guidelines on the proper use of asthma medications, excessive SABA use and poor adherence to controller medications persist. Therefore, a retrospective observational study was conducted using a linked population-based administrative claim database from the population data in British Columbia. SABA overuse was defined as using more than two SABA canisters in a calendar year.

• Based on a validated case definition, 68,211 adult asthma patients with a mean age of 48.2 years, 40,455 female, met the study's inclusion criteria.
• In the multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, overuse of SABA at baseline was significantly associated with a higher risk of COPD compared to appropriate SABA users at the 5-year, 10-year, and 18-year follow-up duration after controlling for all relevant covariates and confounders.

Interventions that aim at increasing healthcare providers' adherence to the updated asthma clinical practice guidelines should be prioritized to lower the over-prescription of short-acting bronchodilators.

European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress 2022, 3^rd-6^th Sept. 2022, Barcelona