Evaluation of a clinical guideline for the diagnoses of physical and chronic urticaria and angioedema.

In this retrospective study, the feasibility and implementation of a clinical guideline was evaluated in 130 consecutive patients with chronic urticaria. We analysed how often a questionnaire was used, how often routine laboratory tests were performed and on what information (history-taking, detailed questionnaire, laboratory or provocation tests) the diagnosis was made. In this validation sample, the number of identified diagnoses was compared with the number of identified diagnoses of a prospective study previously performed in the same hospital.