Adaptation of a remote therapeutic education program for asthma patients in the context of the covid 19 pandemic

Objective: Show the contribution of therapeutic education in the management of asthma, by highlighting the benefits felt by asthma patients after a TPE program carried out remotely during the Covid 19 pandemic. Methods: This prospective longitudinal study compared two groups of 60 asthma patients, group A (30 patients) benefiting from a TPE program respecting the HAH protocol and the reference group B (30 patients) not benefiting from this program. The latter includes four sessions at the rate of one session per quarter, the first session defined the educational diagnosis of the patient for the two groups then, the second and third sessions assessed the skills of the patients in group A, the fourth session assessed the benefits of TPE for both groups. For statistical analysis we used SPSS version 26 software. Means and standard deviations to characterize continuous quantitative variables. The percentages and frequencies were used to describe the qualitative variables. In addition, the chi-square test and Fisher's test were used to compare the percentages between group A having benefited from the TPE program and the reference group B as appropriate. The Mann-Whitney comparison nonparametric test was also used. To assess the magnitude of the difference and the effect between the two groups A and B we presented the statistics of the effect size: Eta squared (η2) for the Mann – Whitney Wilcoxon test, V de cramer for the test chi-square comparison. Results: The benefits of TPE were assessed by the acquisition or not of the various skills: - Self-care skills were acquired for 60% of patients in group A, against 3.3% for group B, the difference in percentages with group B is significant at the 1% level with a size of very large effect of 0. 744 -Coping skills were 76.7% for the group of patients who completed the TPE program, compared to 6.7% for the reference group; Fisher's test shows a significant difference with a very large effect size of 0.752. Also, concerning drug education, almost 70% of patients in group A recognized the benefit of drug education against 23.3% for group B. Fisher's test shows a significant difference at the 5% threshold with a very large effect size of 0.838. Regarding quality of life, almost 70% of patients in group A judged that TPE provides a better quality of life compared to 46.7% in group B.