Table 1.

Stratified randomisation and characteristics of 44 participating general practices allocated to nurse led intervention for acute asthma or standard guidelines for asthma

Characteristic	Intervention practices (n=22)	Control practices (n=22)
Partnership size:
Singlehanded	9	9
2 partners	5	5
≥3 partners	8	8
Practice nurse employed	17	17
Practice nurse trained in asthma care	6	9
Approved for general practitioner training	4	5
Hospital admission rate for asthma*:
Low	7	6
Medium	6	7
High	8	8
Member of out of hours cooperative	11	10

^*Lower, middle, and upper tertiles of practices' mean hospital admission rates for asthma for previous two years.