A case study of nurse practitioner care compared with general practitioner care for children with respiratory tract infections.

Aim: To compare quality of care provided by nurse practitioners (NP) with care provided by general practitioners (GP) for children with respiratory tract infections (RTI) in the Netherlands.

Background: Nurse practitioners increasingly manage acute conditions in general practice, with opportunities for more protocolled care. Studies on quality of NPs' care for children with RTIs are limited to the US healthcare system and do not take into account baseline differences in illness severity.