Asthma morbidity has been increasing in the past few years in Taiwan. Self-care is the key of managing this chronic disease. The purpose of this study was examining the effectiveness of individualized self-care education program among moderate-severe asthma adult patients. This study used experimental design on 148 moderate-severe asthma patients. The subjects were randomly assigned into three groups: comparison group (usual care), experimental 1 (individualized education), experimental 2 (individualized education and peak flow), and followed for a 3-month period. The measurements in this study included demographic data, asthma patient self-care agency scale, asthma patient self-efficacy scale, asthma patient self-care behavior scale and social support scale.

The major finding of this study showed: The subjects in both experimental groups are better than those in comparison group (F=9.746, p <.001) on “asthma self-care knowledge”; the subjects in the experimental 2 is significantly higher than those in comparison group and experimental 1. (F=77.515, p < .001) on “asthma self-care behavior”; the subjects in the comparison group is significantly lower than those in both experimental groups (F=31.366, p < .001 ) on ”asthma self-efficacy”; and the subjects in the comparison group is significantly lower than those in both experimental groups (F=5.052, p < .001 ) on “social support”. Also, the subjects in the experimental 2 group is better than the other groups (F=2.840, p =.025) on asthma control indicator. There is no statistics differences among three groups(p=.544; p =.169 ) on using of unscheduled medical resources.

The results of this study can help health care providers to individualize their interventions to the specific needs' of the asthma patients, thus helping patients to enhance their self-care behavior, manage disease, and promote quality of life.