How do we measure success of treatment?
Patient reported outcomes (PROMs) highlight what is important to the
patient (“can I get upstairs?”) rather than what is conventionally
measured by physicians, e.g. changes in spirometry, and are increasingly
used in clinical practice and research [58] . They need to be
co-designed with families. Unfortunately, currently none such exist for
preschool wheeze. Disease control can be assessed by the Test for
Respiratory and Asthma control [59] and the Paediatric Asthma
Quality of life questionnaire in children age over 2 years. There are
versions designed for parentsto answer [60, 61], and instruments
assessing the severity of attacks and parental feelings during the
episode[62, 63]. Developing PROMs for pre-school wheeze is an
important research priority.