Just over a third of Australians with asthma are properly using their preventer medication to control their condition, a survey has found.

Thousands of Australians with asthma are relying too much on reliever puffers as a quick fix for their wheezing, putting themselves at risk of having a major attack and needing hospital treatment.

A survey of more than 2600 people aged over 16 with asthma found 39 per cent only used reliever puffers to treat their symptoms instead of taking regular preventer medication.

The study, led by the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and published recently in the journal BMJ Open, also found a quarter of those who only used a reliever puffer ended up needing urgent medical treatment after suffering a dangerous flare-up.

The findings have sparked warnings for people with asthma to check with their GPs about whether they need to take preventative medication, and for doctors and pharmacists to better explain the benefits of those treatments.

The study's lead author Professor Helen Reddel said national guidelines suggest that anyone over five years old who experiences asthma symptoms twice a month or more, as well as those at risk of asthma flare-ups, should use a preventer puffer every day even if they have no symptoms.

"It doesn't have to be a high dose, it can be just a very low dose of a preventer, and what that does is reduce their risk of having a flare-up or even dying of asthma, and also reduces symptoms," Prof Reddel told AAP.

Australia has one of the highest rates of asthma in the world, with about one in nine people affected.

About 400 Australians die from asthma each year, and while most are older patients the majority of the deaths among young people would likely have been preventable.

The Woolcock study found that those most likely to only use reliever medication were young men.

Nearly a quarter of them had needed urgent medical treatment in the past year, and nearly three quarters had symptoms consistent with poorly-controlled asthma.

Asthma Australia chief executive Michele Goldman said with so many different medications available it was up doctors, pharmacists and her organisation to better explain their roles in treating asthma and preventing flare-ups.

"People are using reliever medications and getting instantaneous relief, so that's very tempting versus taking a preventer as well," she said

"But it's a bandaid solution because relievers don't address the underlying inflammation in the airways so you are going to continue having symptoms and needing a reliever and ultimately putting yourself at risk."

Prof Reddel said part of the problem was based on the "bad PR image" preventer puffers had because they are a corticosteroid-based treatment.

Many people, she said, confused the corticosteroids in preventers with the steroids used by some athletes and which can cause dangerous side effects.

"In most people if they take a low dose inhaled corticosteroid regularly and take it correctly the potential side effects are absolutely minimal and certainly less than the risk of having a flare-up," Prof Reddel said.