By Laura Marsh 
Each month, CREATION.co’s respiratory tracking update brings you the latest insights into the online UK healthcare professional (HCP) conversation regarding respiratory disease.
Within the UK HCP respiratory disease online conversation, discussions relating to COVID-19 continued at a steady level throughout the month. But interestingly this was not always the leading topic of conversation, as was seen on 5th May, when World Asthma Day prompted a large increase in online HCP social media posts.
On World Asthma Day, UK HCPs celebrated the continued work of their healthcare peers in supporting asthma patients during this time. The efforts of families, friends and carers in helping patients to manage their condition was also recognised.
It's our first World Asthma Day as your friendly BHR neighbourhood asthma nurses- @AndrewF05452495 @rachaelnicolson @LauraKingCNS, featuring loads of our friends from @BHR_ChildHealth & across the organisation.
Enjoy! 🌍🌈🎶 #WorldAsthmaDay2020 #useaspacer pic.twitter.com/W9ip7uXftk— Laura King (@LauraKingCNS) May 5, 2020
The theme of this year’s World Asthma Day was ‘End Asthma Deaths’. HCPs shared UK asthma death statistics and called for national action to reduce the asthma death toll in this country, and particularly among those with a lower income. UK HCPs stated the need for more effective education about asthma for HCPs and the general public, as well as improved, regular asthma reviews for patients.
Asthma attacks should not be accepted as normal.
They are usually a failure of treatment.
We need to do better.
We need more people to know this!
Better quality public and HCP education and better asthma reviews would be a good start#WorldAsthmaDay #WorldAsthmaDay2020 https://t.co/yllimwk7uR— Andy Whittamore (@76whit) May 5, 2020
In addition, UK HCPs provided consistent advice and reminders to patients about how to best manage their asthma. In particular, patients were encouraged to: use their preventative inhaler, monitor their peak flows, and continue attending asthma check ups as usual.
Today is #WorldAsthmaDay. Don’t forget to take your preventer inhaler, avoid triggers where possible and attend your asthma check up with your nurse. Lots of people are now taking their preventer inhaler due to concerns over Covid-19 🤞it continues 👏 https://t.co/FkWynngbGg
— Amy Kelly 💙 (@AmyKellyresp) May 5, 2020
Each month, we track the HCP conversation relating to respiratory disease and this month we have seen UK HCPs consistently using Twitter as a platform to raise awareness of asthma on World Asthma Day, above the noise of information relating to COVID-19.
You can keep up to date with this and other pharmaceutical tracking updates, including drug approvals within the Tracking section of CREATION Knowledge, or sign up to receive our monthly eJournal with all of our latest HCP insights.
READ THE PREVIOUS RESPIRATORY TRACKER:
UK HCPs protect peers and patients by responding to misinformation
Methodology
- This article analysed the Twitter conversations of HCPs in the UK discussing respiratory disease and related terms between April 21 and May 20 2020, using CREATION Pinpoint®.
- Between April 21 and May 20 2020, there were 5,116 UK HCP mentions of respiratory disease and related terms, from 2,483 unique UK HCP authors.
