Nurse versus physician led-care for the management of paediatric asthma

This thesis discusses the role of a specialized nurse practitioner in the follow up of children with asthma in comparison with traditional care by a general practitioner or a paediatrician. In addition, we evaluated the suitability of an existing questionnaire to assess quality of care and we evaluated a modified questionnaire on asthma knowledge.
Data on the effects on health care outcomes of the organizational structure of chronic care and interventions in such organizational structures are scarce. This is in contrast to the abundant data on therapeutic interventions.
For our studies we assumed that an asthma nurse is able to provide good asthma care by reinforcing the patient's knowledge about asthma, ensuring adherence to a management plan, checking inhalation technique, and adjusting medication according to the guidelines.
Furthermore a systematic review on the subject "Nurse versus physician-led care for the management of asthma" is presented.