Treatable Traits shared decision-making in severe asthma: a digital decision-making toolkit (Eleanor Majellano)

Treatable Traits shared decision-making in severe asthma: a digital decision-making toolkit (Eleanor Majellano)

Eleanor Majellano Dr Eleanor Majellano is an Early Career Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Treatable Traits. With more than seven years of experience in clinical and translational research on airway diseases, she is committed to advancing person-centred care and ensuring that consumer voices and lived experience are embedded in research, service redesign, and healthcare improvement. Her work focuses on developing personalised, effective, and equitable models of care for people living with obstructive airway diseases. Central to her research aims is the pursuit of high-quality, person-centred research that improves patient outcomes and experiences and can be directly translated into clinical practice. Drawing on her expertise in mixed methods research and meaningful community and stakeholder engagement, she is uniquely positioned to design and conduct studies that are both scientifically rigorous and deeply grounded in patient priorities. Project Status: In progress, commenced 2022 Grant Type: Fellowship grant

Asthma Australia is proud to support the careers of our future asthma researchers! This includes Dr Eleanor Majellano, who is currently completing a research fellowship funded by Asthma Australia.

Eleanor’s project aims to help people with severe asthma be a part of the decision making in their own healthcare through the development of digital toolkits.

About the research

Eleanor will work with people with severe asthma and healthcare professionals to co-design a toolkit to support shared decision making.

The toolkit will use a Treatable Traits approach, which recognises that not all asthma is the same and the importance of individually assessing patients and managing their treatable problems (or traits).

The toolkit will include specific tools for people with severe asthma and healthcare professionals.

Eleanor and the research team will:

• Interview people with severe asthma and healthcare professionals to understand what information they need and how they would like to use it.
• Hold focus groups with people with severe asthma and healthcare professionals to develop person centred language for the different treatable traits.
• Develop, test and refine the toolkit.

Why was funding this research important?

There have been huge developments in treatments for people with severe asthma. However, people with severe asthma continue to experience the burden from symptoms and suffer serious side-effects of treatments. Experts say part of the problem is that current management strategies treat all people with asthma the same, using a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

A severe asthma management approach has been developed called ‘Treatable Traits.’ This recognises that not all asthma is the same. It means people with severe asthma are assessed for different treatable problems or traits to ensure they receive the right treatment. Traits might include other health problems (e.g. obesity), risk factors (e.g. smoking), or self-management skills (e.g. asthma device technique).

Existing research has shown that this approach can improve asthma control and quality of life in people with severe asthma.

However, managing all traits a patient has at the same time might not be practical or feasible. This project aims to address this problem by supporting an individual with a person-centred approach. It will help people with severe asthma and their healthcare professionals to share decision making and prioritise the traits most important to the person with asthma.