What Is Your Asthma Severity Classification?

By reviewing the table below, you can classify your asthma severity based on NHLBI guidelines as either:

• Intermittent
• Mild Persistent
• Moderate Persistent
• Severe Persistent

Your asthma severity is based upon the criteria described below. For example, if you are waking up two nights per month with cough or feeling short of breath, your asthma is in the intermittent asthma severity classification. If have symptoms two days per week, use your rescue inhaler two times per week, have a normal FEV1 between exacerbations, but wake up at night three times per week, your asthma severity is moderate persistent. Your asthma treatment will, in part, be based on your asthma severity.

Interpreting the Asthma Severity Table

The table uses the following criteria to determine asthma severity:

• Symptoms: How many days in the past week have you experienced chest tightness, cough, shortness of breath, or wheezing?


• Nighttime awakenings: How often due you wake up at night with chest tightness, cough, shortness of breath, or wheezing?


• Rescue inhaler use: How many times in the last week have you used your rescue inhaler?


• FEV1: What is your current lung function measured with spirometry? Unlike the other above symptoms, your FEV1 will not be readily available at home; you will need to ask your doctor when pulmonary function tests are performed.

_Sources:

_{National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Accessed: May 20, 2010. Expert Panel Report 3 (EPR3): Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma}

_{Clinical Pulmonary Function Testing, Exercise Testing, and Disability Evaluation. In Chest Medicine: Essentials Of Pulmonary And Critical Care Medicine. Editors: Ronald B. George, Richard W. Light, Richard A. Matthay, Michael A. Matthay. May 2005, 5th edition.}

Asthma Severity

	Intermittent	Mild Persistent	Moderate Persistent	Severe Persistent
Symptoms	2 or less days per week	More than 2 days per week	Daily	Throughout the day
Nighttime Awakenings	2 X's per month or less	3-4 X's per month	More than once per week but not nightly	Nightly
Rescue Inhaler Use	2 or less days per week	More than 2 days per week, but not daily	Daily	Several times per day
Interference With Normal Activity	None	Minor limitation	Some limitation	Extremely limited
Lung Function	FEV1 >80% predicted and normal between exacerbations	FEV1 >80% predicted	FEV1 60-80% predicted	FEV1 less than 60% predicted