Background: Although patient education is the basis of asthma treatment, there is limited research investigating patient education among adult asthmatics in Sweden.

Aim: To investigate the occurrence of patient education and to characterize which adult asthmatics receive patient education.

Methods: Data based on 29760 adult asthma patients (≥18 years) in primary care registered between 2017 and 2019, were extracted from the Swedish National Airway Register.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 51 years of which 61% were women, 39% had tertiary education and 10% were current smokers. Patient education had been offered to 55% (n=16319) of the patients with no sex difference but more common among those aged 30-49 (30%) and 50-69 (36%) than patients aged 18-29 (16%) and >70 years (18%), p=0.012. Patients with tertiary education (38%) and secondary education (45%) had received patient education to a greater extent than those with primary education (17%), p=0.001. Patients with uncontrolled asthma had received patient education to a lesser extent (35%) than those with controlled asthma (65%), p=0.001. Patient education distributed according to treatment steps 1-5 in Global Initiative for Asthma showed that 3% in step 1, 23% in step 2, 31% in step 3, 35% in step 4, and 2 % in step 5 had received patient education.

Conclusions: Astonishingly, only half of adult asthmatics in Sweden receive patient education when this should be offered to all. Specially trained asthma nurses, who are responsible for structured patient education in primary care clinics in Sweden, need to advocate the necessity of offering patient education.