Asthma Australia
FACILITATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH TO OPTIMIZE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
About the client
Asthma Australia seeks to assist children and their carers in engaging in their asthma care more proactively, keeping them out of hospital, living optimally and reducing their risk of death. To understand the hurdles to achieving this, Asthma Australia commissioned a deep dive into the perspective of children and their carers who live and deal with asthma and asthma events. The research aimed to validate and optimise the asthma journey map, and identify key pain points and barriers that interfere with optimal outcomes for young people with asthma.
Methodology, Approach, and Solution
We conducted qualitative research in the form of in-depth interviews with participants recruited from an external panel of Australian residents, who self-identified as having asthma from a range of health conditions. Children aged 5-14-years, and their carers, were interviewed in dyad pairs, in their homes or at the local library. Teenagers were interviewed online. Participants completed a series of online tasks prior to the interviews.
As a pre-curser to the qualitative research, we reviewed existing knowledge held by Asthma Australia through the lens of young people with asthma. This included reviewing previous qualitative and quantitative studies, academic papers and national reports commissioned by Asthma Australia and other asthma-related interest groups. In addition, we held a workshop with key stakeholders to understand existing internally held knowledge.
Results
Our findings refined the asthma patient journey, from the perspective of young people with asthma, and identified core underlying features of the condition that create a landscape of misperception and complacency toward asthma.
We further identified a complex set of interacting factors that influence a child’s trajectory through this landscape, driving them towards optimal or poorer outcomes with their asthma.
We categorised these factors into six distinct sub-groups that play differing roles at various times through the journey of a young person with asthma, and create barriers to optimal behaviour and asthma management.
These factors, working with the customer journey, created a framework with a more detailed and nuanced understanding of patient mental models, that can be used to develop more appropriate messaging and interventions to increase the likelihood of creating behavioural change across the various stages of the asthma journey.
