Asthma LINDern: Longitudinal study on the impact of individual prevention in employees with work-related allergic bronchial asthma on asthma control, disease-related quality of life and life satisfaction

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

The objective of the Asthma LINDern study is to collect scientific findings on the progression of allergic respiratory disease in employees who have avoided or reduced their exposure to allergens, in order to derive prevention recommendations for counselling regarding those affected and the responsible accident insurance providers.

In principle, the findings should be applicable to various industries, i.e. to employees in agriculture, metalworking or healthcare professions. However, the study focuses on bakers and confectioners suffering from asthma, as this collective represents a homogeneous group. In addition, there are already many years of experience with individual prevention measures for bakers as part of a prevention program of the responsible employees German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Foodstuffs Industry and the Catering Trade (BGN); this also includes well-documented medical examinations. The findings from the study of this "best of" collective serve as a model and should be transferable to other industry sectors.

Activities/Methods:

The project is divided into a retrospective and a prospective study part, which is scheduled for five years.

For quality assurance reasons, the prospective study will be conducted in two centers (bicentric) according to standardized protocols; this will allow a sufficient number of people to be examined within an appropriate time frame. In the prospective part of the study, bakers with work-related allergic bronchial asthma who continue to practice their profession under individual prevention measures (training, PPE, medical care) as part of the BGN prevention program will be examined. Three examination time slots are planned. The examination contents recommended for an expert examination (with determination of the reduction in earning capacity (MdE)) will also be recorded in the prospective part.

The retrospective survey will compare data from bakers who did not want to give up their profession and had only taken advantage of individual prevention measures with data from bakers who gave up their profession years ago – with BK 4301 being recognized at the time.

Both parts are supplemented by current and, in the prospective part, repeated questionnaire surveys on the current working conditions, the illness-related quality of life and the life satisfaction of those affected. These should reflect the economic and personal developments through continuation of the activity or abandonment of the profession.

Endpoints are the asthma therapy level (according to the National Disease Management Guideline, NVL), the lung function (FEV₁/Tiffeneau Index) and the asthma severity, specific IgE antibodies against occupational allergens, asthma control (Asthma Control Test, ACT), asthma-related quality of life (Asthma Quality of Life, Mini-AQLQ), life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life-Scale, SWLS), and job satisfaction (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, COPSOQ) as well as sociodemographic factors.

Individual prevention measures are recorded, classified and descriptively evaluated in order to identify which of the previous prevention measures are implemented most frequently and which contribute most effectively to symptom control. The aim is to examine whether continued exposure to allergenic substances leads to a reduction in asthma control and a deterioration in asthma-related quality of life, and what influence individual prevention has. In addition, it will be analysed whether the state of health significantly influences the decision to give up work or whether this decision is more dependent on demographic, social or economic factors.

Although this project focuses on a specific professional group, the research is cross-sectoral relevant, in particular occupations, in which allergic asthma occurs more frequently. This research could be of notable benefit to accident insurance providers, who currently only offer a few measures and are still developing the most effective preventive measures when dealing with respiratory-sensitizing substances for the industries they serve.

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