A pragmatic randomised controlled trial of an asthma nurse in general practice.

Aim: To measure the impact of a nurse led asthma clinic on the quality of life of patients with asthma.

Design: A randomised controlled trial with delayed intervention in the control group.

Outcomes: Primary outcome measure: the Juniper Asthma Quality of Life Instrument. Secondary outcome measure: the EQ4D generic quality of life score.

Results: We analyzed data from 55 patients who were invited to attend an asthma clinic compared with 46 patients who received normal GP care. Due to a high drop out rate we were unable to demonstrate significant changes in our outcome measures. However, when we analysed only those patients attending the clinic there were significant improvements.

Conclusion: Our trial was small and limited to one practice. Due to the high dropout rate we were unable to demonstrate a positive benefit of the intervention of an asthma nurse on the quality of life of asthma sufferers using an intention to treat analysis. This study illustrates the difficulties of undertaking trials on interventions that are well established.