Health Care Providers Often Misunderstand Proper Inhaler Use

Most health care providers fail to understand the correct technique for using inhalers, according to a systematic review published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

“Inefficient inhaler technique compromises the optimal delivery of medication,” researchers wrote. “However, the inhaler technique knowledge of health care professionals has received scant attention.”

The systematic review drew data from 55 studies that assessed the inhaler skills of more than 6000 health care professionals between 1975 and 2014. In all, the studies encompassed nearly 1000 tests of clinician proficiency.

Demonstrated inhaler technique was correct just 15.5% of the time, according to the study. When researchers broke down the studies into 2 time periods—earlier, defined as occurring between 1975 and 1995; and later, occurring between 1996 and 2014—they found clinicians in the later period demonstrated correct inhaler technique a mere 10.8% of the time. Correct inhaler technique occurred 20.5% of the time in the earlier period.

“The poor understanding of the correct use of these devices may prevent these professionals from being able to adequately assess and teach proper inhalation techniques to their patients,” researchers wrote.

The most common errors for pressurized metered dose inhalers were not breathing out completely before inhalation (75%), lack of coordination (64%), and postinhalation breath-hold (63%), according to the study. For dry powder inhalers, common errors included deficient preparation (89%), not breathing out completely before inhalation (79%), and no breath-hold (76%).

—Jolynn Tumolo

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