Introduction: Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease, which causes symptoms such as coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing and chest tightness. Buteyko breathing exercises are easy to perform, ensuring reduced symptom frequency, improved control over asthma, improved lung function and better quality of life. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to determine the importance of performing Buteyko breathing exercises in patients with asthma. Methods: A descriptive method was used comprising an overview of Slovenian and English literature. The literature overview was based on the CINAHL, MedLine, Elsevier Scopus, ProQuest, COBIB databases and the DiKUL data portals as well as the Google Scholar online browser. The inclusion criteria included freely accessible peer-reviewed scientific articles written in English and Slovenian and published between the years 2010 and 2023 as well as articles with appropriate content related to asthma, breathing exercises, Buteyko breathing exercises and advantages of performing breathing exercises. Results: The overview comprised 10 studies, which complied with the inclusion criteria. In total, the research comprised 679 subjects aged from 18 to 65 years who were diagnosed with bronchial asthma. Training programmes ran for at least 14 days and at most 12 months. They included Buteyko breathing exercises, pranayama, physical activity for patients with asthma, walking and conventional physiotherapy. The conclusions of the selected studies showed that Buteyko breathing exercises lead to the reduction of symptoms and improve the quality of life of patients with asthma. Discussion and conclusion: The conclusions of the literature overview show greater efficiency of Buteyko breathing exercises compared to pranayama and conventional therapy. Even greater efficiency was achieved when the Buteyko breathing exercises were complemented with physical activity for patients with asthma, walking and conventional physiotherapy. Nurses are responsible for providing health education to patients with asthma, which is the essential part of all recommendations for asthma treatment. Active participation of patients in the treatment improves the outcome of the disease. Nurses teach patients with asthma to recognise asthma symptoms, proper medication use as well as the importance of breathing exercises and how to correctly perform them.
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