Asthma Control Test (ACT)
| Name of questionnaire | Asthma Control Test (ACT) |
| Type of questionnaire-description | A patient self-administred tool for identifying those with poorly controlled asthma. |
| Number of items | 5 items, with 4-week recall (on symptoms and daily functioning) |
| Number of domains & categories | ACT assesses the frequency of shortness of breath and general asthma symptoms, use of rescue medications, the effect of asthma on daily functioning, and overall self-assessment of asthma control |
| Name of categories/domains | As above |
| Scaling of items | 5-point scale (for symptoms and activities: 1=all the time to 5= not at all; for asthma control rating: 1=not controlled at all to 5=completely controlled) |
| Scoring available: with permission or free | The scores range from 5 (poor control of asthma) to 25 (complete control of asthma), with higher scores reflecting greater asthma control. An ACT score >19 indicates well-controlled asthma. |
| Test-retest reliability | Yes, test-retest reliability was 0.77. |
| Internal consistency | Yes, Cronbach's α= 0.84-0.85 (crossectionally); 0.79 (longitudinally) |
| Validity | Yes, correlated with specialist’s rating of asthma control determined based on history, physical examination and FEV1 |
| Minimally important difference | 3 points between two groups or for changes over time (Schatz M, Kosinski M, Yarlas AS, Hanlon J, Watson ME, Jhingran P. The minimally important difference of the Asthma Control Test, J Allergy Clin Immunol 2009; 124:719-23). |
| Language | English (US) |
| Translations in other languages (if yes, then list the languages) | 34 other languages; for a current list, see click here |
| Developer name | Robert A Nathan et al. |
| Developer contact information | Trudy B. Pendergraft, MSPH, GlaxoSmithKline, 5 Moore, Drive, RTP, NC 27709. |
| Availability of questionnaire: needs permission from developer, cost or freely available | ACT is copyrighted, Quality Metric holds the licensing agreement, for more information, click here |
| References (including original publication) | Nathan RA, Sorkness CA, Kosinski M, Schatz M, Li JT, Marcus P, Murray JJ, Pendergraft TB. Development of the asthma control test: A survey for assessing asthma control. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2004 (113): 59-65; Schatz M, Sorkness CA, Li JT, Marcus P, Murray JJ, Nathan RA, Kosinski M, Pendergraft TB, Jhingran P. Asthma Control Test: reliability, validity, and responsiveness in patients not previously followed by asthma specialists. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2006; 117:549-56. |
| Limitations | It has a multidimensional construct, however does not include objective measures of airway caliber |
| Link to the questionnaire (if available) | Not available |
| Other comments | Contains one question related to symptoms upon awakening. Aside of office setting, ACT has also been validated for use by mail (Schatz M, Mosen DM, Kosinski M, Vollmer WM, Magid DJ, O’Connor E, Zeiger RS. Validity of the Asthma Control Test completed at home. Am J Manag Care 2007;13:661-7) and by telephone (Schatz M, Zeiger R, Drane A, Harden K, Cibildak A, Oosterman J, Kosinski M. Reliability and predictive validity of the Asthma Control Test administered by telephone calls using speech recognition technology. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2007;119: 336-43). |
