Australia's national asthma research agenda: Priorities for end-users of research

ABSTRACT

Introduction/Aim: The fifth objective of the 2018 National Asthma Strategy called for the development of a national research agenda. Asthma Australia and partners have completed this project the National Asthma Research Agenda. Method(s) A national, mixed-method study design adapted from the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership was adopted. Comprising two discrete phases . A cross-sectional purposive survey of people with asthma, their careers, clinicians and public health professional. The survey findings were analysed thematically. Themes containing questions already answered by high quality research were removed. The project executive team approved the remaining list of themes for phase 2. Three consensus workshops were held comprising health and policy professionals, people with asthma, parents and people from diverse backgrounds to achieve consensus on prioritising and ranking the themes. Workshop participants did this under the guidance of a trained/skilled facilitator. The ranked themes from the workshops were filtered through a computer algorithm, resulting in a top ten list of asthma research priority themes. These themes summarise specific topics and questions and form the National Asthma Research Agenda. Result(s) 593 people completed the survey. Most respondents were female and had asthma. The top ten research priority themes are Asthma in children Asthma and COVID-19 Asthma care and self-management Diagnosis and medication Managing asthma attacks Causes, prevention and features of asthma Mental health Asthma and ageing Severe asthma Asthma and other health conditions These themes include sub-topics, which reflect the specific inputs of the survey participants. Results were consistent among subgroups. Conclusion(s) The end-user methodology used has been useful in determining what's important to the people who rely on the answers provided by asthma research in Australia. This is a broad research agenda, which highlights the extent of research output that consumers require in order to manage asthma.