Article Text
Abstract
Rationale There is significant practice variation in acute paediatric asthma, particularly severe exacerbations. It is unknown whether this is due to differences in clinical guidelines.
Objectives To describe and compare the content and quality of clinical guidelines for the management of acute exacerbations of asthma in children between geographic regions.
Methods Observational study of guidelines for the management of acute paediatric asthma from institutions across a global collaboration of six regional paediatric emergency research networks.
Measurements and main results 158 guidelines were identified. Half provided recommendations for at least two age groups, and most guidelines provided treatment recommendations according to asthma severity.
There were consistent recommendations for the use of inhaled short-acting beta-agonists and systemic corticosteroids. Inhaled anticholinergic therapy was recommended in most guidelines for severe and critical asthma, but there were inconsistent recommendations for its use in mild and moderate exacerbations. Other inhaled therapies such as helium-oxygen mixture (Heliox) and nebulised magnesium were inconsistently recommended for severe and critical illness.
Parenteral bronchodilator therapy and epinephrine were mostly reserved for severe and critical asthma, with intravenous magnesium most recommended. There were regional differences in the use of other parenteral bronchodilators, particularly aminophylline.
Guideline quality assessment identified high ratings for clarity of presentation, scope and purpose, but low ratings for stakeholder involvement, rigour of development, applicability and editorial independence.
Conclusions Current guidelines for the management of acute paediatric asthma exacerbations have substantial deficits in important quality domains and provide limited and inconsistent guidance for severe exacerbations.
- respiratory medicine
- emergency care
- paediatrics
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Data are available on reasonable request. De-identified data will be available for sharing from 1 January 2025. Any data access requests should be sent to SC (simon.craig@monash.edu) and should include a proposal from the individual or organisation regarding their plan for use of the data.The study team will review the request and consider the scientific merit of the proposed use of the data, and the legal, regulatory and ethical issues pertinent to the request. Presuming all constraints are addressed, the data will be shared using a secure file transfer platform.
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