Xu 2010.
Methods |
Study design: 6‐month parallel RCT Setting: recruited from the Royal Children's Hospital Brisbane, and Caboolture, Gold Coast, and Ipswich hospitals in Queensland The trial started in August 2006 and was completed in September 2007 |
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Participants |
Population: 121 participants were randomised to home telemonitoring (41) or to control (41), or to 1 other group not relevant to this review Baseline characteristics Mean age (SD): monitoring 6.5 (3); control 7.4 (3) % male: monitoring 51.2; control 51.2 Inclusion criteria: children and young people aged between 3 and 16 years with doctor‐diagnosed asthma who had had an admission to hospital in the previous 12 months or had presented at least once in the previous 12 months to an emergency department or to their general practitioner or specialist with acute asthma requiring oral steroid rescue Exclusion criteria: NR |
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Interventions |
Intervention: The nurse support group received regular follow‐up calls from 1 Nurse Specialist every 2 weeks. When families preferred email contact, the nurse used email to collect the same data and to offer education and advice on asthma Control: Participants' primary care physicians were notified and continued to provide primary asthma care. All families received the same initial asthma education with the same Nurse Specialist. The control group received regular GP or hospital outpatient care |
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Outcomes | Primary outcomes were health resource utilisation such as GP visits, hospital ED presentations and hospital admissions. Other outcomes included use of oral steroids, PAQLQ, time of school or work for parents/carers. Measured at baseline and at the end of the study | |
Notes | Funding: NR | |
Risk of bias | ||
Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Participants were randomised into 3 study groups. Block randomisation was used with random block sizes of 3 or 6 to create an allocation to 1 of the 3 groups for all study participants |
Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | No details about allocation concealment |
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) Objective outcomes | Low risk | It would not have been possible to hide allocation from participants and personnel, but it is unlikely that this would have introduced bias for objective outcomes (e.g. number of people having exacerbations) |
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) Subjective outcomes | High risk | Subjective outcomes such as quality of life and symptom scales filled in by participants or personnel may have been subject to performance bias |
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | High risk | No evidence of outcome assessor blinding |
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | One participant in the control group was lost to follow‐up |
Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | Outcomes were well reported for named outcomes, but no trial protocol was available to check |
Other bias | Low risk | None noted |