BACKGROUND: There is a wide variability in clinical practice for treating acute asthma (AA) in the emergency room (ER) interfering in the quality of management. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a clinical protocol for care of acute asthma in the ER of the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. METHOD: In this hospital a cross-sectional study was conducted before and after implementation of the protocol, of consecutive patients presenting with acute asthma in the adult ER (age > 12 years). The intention was to measure the effect of recommendations on the objective assessment of severity, utilization of diagnostic tools, proposed therapy, not recommended therapy and on the outcomes. RESULTS: The pre-protocol group comprised 108 patients and the protocol group comprised 96 patients. There was a significant increase in the use of pulse oximetry (8% to 77%, p<0.001) and PEFR (5% to 21%, p<0.001). There was an increase in the utilization of radiology (33% to 66%, p<0.001) and in that of blood tests (11% to 25%, p=0.016). There was also an increase in the number of patients receiving the three recommended nebulizations in the first hour (22% to 36%, p=0.04). Although the overall use of corticosteroids did not change, there was a significant increase in the use of oral steroids (8% to 28%, p<0.001). There was no significant difference in the not recommended therapy, time of stay and outcomes. CONCLUSION: The acute asthma clinical protocol used in the ER was associated to a positive effect on the objective assessment of severity of asthma and on the use of the recommended therapy. No other significant influence on the treatment or on the outcome was perceived.
Clinical protocols; Asthma; Emergency medicine
