Objective: The present study was conducted to determine the level of asthma knowledge of the medical students before graduation.

Methods: For this purpose, a questionnaire was filled out by the 200 medical students enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of Siileyman Demirel University during the 1999-2000 session.

Results: While a mean score was 3.5 (range, 0 to 9) for the first year students, a mean score for the sixth year students was 11.4 (range, 9 to 13) and the increase was statistically significant. Although the third year students answered the questionnaire after receiving the commitee of circulation-respiration systems, only 25.0% of them were able to recognize the importance of inhaled corticosteroids in the prophylactic treatment of chronic asthma and 56.2% of them were able to name inhaled P-agonists in the treatment of acute attacks of asthma. The response rates of the sixth year students were 32.0% and 60.0%, respectively. The environmental factors (84.0%) and the allergens (64.0%) were named as two common trigger factors for attacks of asthma by the sixth year students.

Conclusion: Although knowledge about asthma increased continously during the six-year curriculum, their knowledge regarding the trigger factors, the prophylactic treatment and the treatment of acute asthma attacks were insufficient. As asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases among children and adults, these findings suggest that there is more need for considering its importance in the medical curriculum.