Implementation of the national asthma management guidelines in the emergency department.

Objective: The national protocol for asthma management was released in 1995. There has been no national investigation to compare the actual care delivered at the Emergency Department to those recommended by these guidelines: To compare the documented management of acute bronchial asthma at the Emergency Room (ER) with the Saudi National Guidelines

Methods: Retrospective analyses of a total of 150 ER records, of patients with a diagnosis of asthma over a one year period (January through to December 2000), at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, King Fahad National Guard Hospital, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Documentation of the history, indices of severity, treatment given, pre-discharge assessment and prescriptions were compared to the nationally recommended management.