Impact of good clinical practice for nebulization in the Center Region of France

The recommendations of the National Conference on Good Clinical Practice fo r use of nebulization for aerosoltherapy were published in 1997 We conducte d a prospective study to assess delivery and use of home nebulization in th e Center Region of France to determine the impact of these recommendations. A survey was made in 2 groups delivering,nebulization devices. A questionn aire included the following items: name of the distributor; type of materia l used device chosen, therapeutic indication, compound(s) used and duration of the prescription. Over a 3-month period, from June 1, 1998 through August 31, 1998, 543 nebul izers were delivered and in use. The indication for nebulization was known in two-thirds of the cases, including chronic respiratory disease (39%) (as thma, COPD, cystic fibrosis. Nebulization practices complied with good clin ical practice in 87.4% of the cases. The main discordances were choice of t he device (2.8%), prescription outside approval regulations (2.8%), and ass ociation of several compounds (8%). Use can be improved when the practition eris prescription gives the name of the compound to be nebulized as well as the type of nebulizer; the duration of each session and the total duration of the treatment.