Just one in five UK asthma patients use pharmacists as a main source of information, an academic study has revealed, one of the lowest rates in western Europe.

Only Finland was lower in its use of pharmacists, where 14 per cent of patients regarded them as a primary source, the study of nine European countries showed.

The survey of 7,457 patients, presented at the annual congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in Barcelona on Wednesday (September 10), found 62 per cent of UK patients used their GP and nearly a third named their nurse as a first port of call. Respondents were asked to choose "their primary source of information about asthma" but could choose more than one source.

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	Use of pharmacists was highest in Austria at 31 per cent, found the research, sponsored by Mundipharma and conducted by researchers from Education for Health in Warwick, the University of Groningen and the University of Aberdeen.

Co-author David Price, chair of primary care respiratory medicine at Aberdeen University, told C+D the role of pharmacy had "maybe been less well proven" in the UK. Professor Price suggested the UK could make better use of the sector, and stressed there had been "phenomenal outcomes" achieved in Australia by improving inhaler technique through pharmacies.

Of the 8,000 patients questioned overall, 91 per cent thought their condition was well controlled – a figure that was matched by UK patients.

But only 20 per cent met the Global Initiative for Asthma classification for being controlled, and the authors said levels of control remained "sub-optimal" across Europe.

Just over half of respondents had not had their inhaler technique checked in the past year and quarter had experienced exacerbations that required oral steroid use.