[Neuropediatric healthcare demand in a general hospital]

The few existing studies on the demand for neuropediatric care in Spain offer information of enormous value, contributing to our knowledge of this specialty and of the needs of specialists and their training, as well as to the correct planning and use of economic and human resources.

To determine the real demand, predominant disorders and usefulness of complementary examinations with a view to determining the need for neuropediatric care in a general hospital.

Descriptive, retrospective study of patients attending the neuropediatric department for the first time during a 7-year period and for follow-up visits during a 4-year period. The periods were randomly selected.

During this period 1130 children, generating 5033 consultations, were assessed. The total number of visits amounted to 25% of all consultations in the Pediatric Department, involving 31% of the children under 14 years of age in the pediatric population of Segovia. The overall rate of reexaminations/new patients was 3.4. The most frequent diagnosis was headache (32%), followed by non-epileptic paroxysms, febrile convulsions and epilepsy. The disorders requiring the greatest number of follow-up consultations were epilepsy (20%), headache (9%) and febrile convulsions (5%). The rate of reexamination/new patients was significantly higher in pediatric cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Electroencephalogram was the most frequently requested complementary examination, followed by neuroradiological studies.

Demand for neuropediatric care mainly involves headaches, epilepsy, convulsions, non-epileptic paroxysmal disorders, and neonatal neurology in the first years of life. Pressure on neuropediatric departments is great due to the number of patients attending consulting rooms because of functional or self-limiting disorders. This pressure could be reduced by appropriate neurological training of general pediatricians or family doctors.