The aim of this systematic review was to examine whether there is support for physical exercise having noticeable and positive effect on fitness, activities, health-related quality of life and whether it lessens exercise induced symptoms in patients with asthma. The databases PubMed, AMED, CINAHL and PsycINFO were queried from 1983 up to and including April 2003 for randomised controlled trials, which investigate the effects on physical training for patients with asthma. Five studies fit the inclusion criteria. The studies where evaluated with an evaluation file containing four main categories: study/population, treatment, evaluation, presentation and analysis of results. All five studies showed that patients with asthma improved their physical fitness after physical exercise. All studies where flawed in terms of study populations and four regarding the length of follow-up time. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of this literature review is that there are positive results showing that physical exercise is good for patients with asthma. They significantly improve their physical fitness after physical training. In the studies that have evaluated health-related quality of life significant improvements were noted. The conclusion is based on five studies. More randomised controlled studies with a larger number of subjects, exclusively made up of patients with asthma, and with longer follow-up times, would be appreciated.

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