Introduction: There is substantial inconsistency between the evidence available on the management of childhood asthma and its application in practice.
Objective: To evaluate the degree of appropriateness of current management of childhood asthma.
Material and methods: We performed a structured review of the articles published on appropriateness in the recent biomedical literature (last 5 years). Methodological analysis and qualitative synthesis were performed.
Results: Twenty-three articles were identified that reflected the following problems: insufficient documentation on trigger factors, evolution of pulmonary function and symptoms, inadequate guidelines on the treatment of exacerbations, inadequate use of inhaler devices, insufficient use of anti-inflammatory drugs, unjustified heterogeneity in the selection of anti-inflammatory drugs, lack of correlation between severity and level of treatment, lack of written guidelines on customized self-management, unjustified use of antibiotics, and lack of pulmonary function testing devices.
Conclusions: The management of childhood asthma should be reviewed since a large number of decisions made in clinical practice are not always based on valid scientific evidence.