| Methods |
Randomisation: Hospital pharmacy using random numbers table
Blinding: double blinded ‐ similar appearing and tasting (grapefruit‐flavoured mixture) Number excluded: well described.
Withdrawals: described, and based on allocation (prednisone = 2; placebo = 2).
Baseline characteristics: no imbalances demonstrated. No adjusted analyses. |
| Participants |
Location: Children's Hospital, Brighton, UK.
Participants: 140 children, moderate‐severe acute asthma. Information on the subgroup of patients receiving inhaled steroids at the study enrolment was available.
Asthma definition and severity: moderate‐severe
Exclusion criteria: croup, pneumonia, pertussis, congenital heart disease, mental retardation. Any child receiving a steroid within the previous 48 hours was excluded, as well as any child vomiting the study medication within 1 hour of ingestion. |
| Interventions |
Intervention: Children < 5 given 30 mg of oral prednisone, =>5 received 60 mg .
Control: identical placebo.
Co‐interventions: nebulised salbutamol 5 mg in 2 ml saline on admission and three or more times daily when needed. |
| Outcomes |
Admission: At six hours, by treating MD, no specific criteria.
Pulmonary functions: PEFR and % predicted.
Adverse effects: none
Vital signs: none.
Symptoms: 0 ‐10 scale (0 = good, 10 = poor).
Lab: not reported
Timing of assessment: entry, 30 minutes, and 4 hours.
Administrative data: times of admission, length of hospital stay. |
| Notes |
Jadad score:
Dr. Storr responded to correspondence and provided additional information. |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Allocation concealment? |
Unclear risk |
Hospital pharmacy using random numbers table |
