Objectives: It is widely acknowledged that 70% of people with asthma do not adhere to their asthma treatment. Previous research has identified barriers from the perspective of expert panels, healthcare professionals and people with asthma, but there are limited resources available in a busy health care setting to ensure a complete understanding of the psychological/behavioural barriers. The current study will investigate the psychological and behavioural barriers using the capability, opportunity, and motivation leads to behaviour (COM-B) model resource. 

Methods: A total of 170  people with asthma were recruited from a single visit at Queen Alexandra Hospital. Participants completed a set of psychological questionnaires and routinely collected data from participants was also recorded (e.g., asthma characteristics, medication regime, lung function, blood results and asthma control).

Results: A total of 86 participants were considered to have suboptimal adherence. Simple main effects analysis showed that sub-optimal adherence had a significant interaction with Motivation (p=.01) and Capability (p=.01), but there were no differences between Opportunity (p=.16). 

Conclusion: Motivation and Capability are identified as a psychological and behavioural barrier of adherence using the COM-B model resource, providing a link to behaviour change techniques to develop a future intervention.