Impact of Clinical Guidance & Point-of-care CRP in Children: the ARON Project (ARON)
Infection
About this trial
This is an interventional other trial for Infection focused on measuring antibiotic prescription, infections, decision tree, point-of-care C-reactive protein test, safetynet advice
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria for practices:
- Being able to recruit acutely ill children (ideally consecutively)
- Agree to the terms of the clinical study agreement.
Exclusion Criteria for practices:
- Currently using a POC CRP device as part of their routine care
- No practices will be excluded on other grounds than the above. Age, demographics, geographic region will not be used to exclude eligible practices. This will provide us with a real-life, representative subset of ambulatory care physicians.
Inclusion criteria for children
- Children aged 6 months to 12 years, provided informed consent can be obtained
- presenting with an acute illness episode that started maximum 10 days before the index consultation
Exclusion criteria for children
- Children who were previously included in this trial
- children with an underlying known chronic condition (e.g. asthma, immune deficiency)
- clinically unstable warranting immediate care
- immunosuppressant medication taken in the previous 30 days
- trauma as the main presenting problem
- antibiotics taken in the previous 7 days
- Unwillingness or inability to provide informed consent
Sites / Locations
- GPs associated with KU LeuvenRecruiting
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Arm 2
Active Comparator
No Intervention
Intervention: Diagnostic algorithm
Usual care
diagnostic algorithm including a standardised clinical assessment, a Point-of-care C-reactive protein test, and safety netting advice
In the control arm, patients will receive 'usual care' left at the discretion of the treating physician. Apart from the general training session for all participating physicians they have attended prior to recruitment and randomization, physicians in the control arm will not receive additional tools. They are expected (but not forced) to follow the Belgian guidelines (as described in "BAPCOC National guidelines and the RIZIV consensus meeting "Rational use of antibiotics in children").