An Asthma Self-management App (ANASA) - Evaluating a tailored solution for people with asthma.

The NHS is faced with many threats across the board, a key challenge is helping the 5.4 million people
with asthma manage their illness. Asthma cannot be cured but its symptoms can be controlled, through
self-management and adhering to medication. Engaging in these behaviours/actions alleviates symptoms
of asthma and improves individuals quality of life. However, 3.78 million people are not properly
managing their asthma, because of this individuals are often tolerating unnecessary symptoms, reducing
their quality of life and risking triggering a life threatening exacerbation. A solution to this is by
empowering individuals with a mobile-app to help guide self-management, to address the barriers and
needs of the chronic illness. Thus, this PhD project will look to introduce AN Asthma Self-management
App (ANASA) to facilitate self-management for people with asthma. ANASA will look to alleviate the
barriers that are reducing the effectiveness of the patient's ability to manage their asthma. The ANASA
project will be grounded by the COM-B model, a theoretical model that evaluates interventions and
supports behaviour change. It will integrate approaches from psychology and health care to develop an
interdisciplinary intervention. To achieve this, the primary aim of the proposed PhD is to propose an
effective mobile-app that will guide people with asthma to self-manage their condition. This will be
achieved by exploring: (1) the barriers of asthma self-management, (2) identify the most appropriate app
for people with asthma and (3) implement the digital technology to minimise them.