Assessing asthma control in children 0 to 4 years of age

The level of control is based on the most severe impairment or risk category. Assess impairment domain by caregiver's recall of the previous 2 to 4 weeks. Symptom assessment for longer periods should reflect a global assessment, such as inquiring whether the patient's asthma is better or worse since the last visit. At present, there are inadequate data to correspond frequencies of exacerbations with different levels of asthma control. In general, more frequent and intense exacerbations (eg, requiring urgent, unscheduled care, hospitalization, or ICU admission) indicate poorer disease control. For treatment purposes, patients who had ≥2 exacerbations requiring oral systemic corticosteroids in the past year may be considered the same as patients who have not well-controlled asthma, even in the absence of impairment levels consistent with persistent asthma.