Finalist
The Reliever Reliance Test (RRT)
by Spoonful of Sugar Ltd Funded by AstraZeneca
Summary of work
Asthma affects 339 million people worldwide resulting in 1,000 avoidable deaths per day. Global overreliance on the blue reliever (SABA) inhalers within asthma patients was highlighted as ineffective and dangerous in 2019, by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). A change was therefore recommended by GINA, for asthma patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) to avoid SABA and replace it with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), even for symptom control.
Research by AstraZeneca (AZ) and others showed that many patients were emotionally attached to their SABA. AZ tasked behaviour-change experts at Spoonful of Sugar (SoS) to help break patients’ overreliance. SoS developed the Reliever Reliance Test (RRT), a self-complete patient-friendly tool, which is designed to raise awareness of the problem of SABA overuse and to encourage patients to reflect on whether their perceptions of SABA may be causing them to over rely on it, whilst also encouraging them to discuss their asthma control with their HCP.
RRT has been translated into >15 languages and digitally completed by >213,000 patients globally. It has been revealed that the RRT has influenced a change of behaviour in a high proportion of patients.
Judges’ comments
The Reliever Reliance Test entry had strong results and was clearly a good tool. It had clear and specific analysis, as well as clarity on patient needs. The judges liked the measurements that demonstrated a change in patient outcomes.
