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Multiple health care visits related to a pediatric emergency visit for young children with common illnesses
F Angoulvant1, S Jumel, S Prot-Labarthe
1Service d'Accueil des Urgences Pédiatriques, AP-HP, Hôpital Robert Debré, 48 Boulevard Sérurier, 75019 Paris, France. francois.angoulvant@rdb.aphp.fr
Insights
Multiple healthcare visits for common childhood illnesses are frequent, particularly for febrile children. This pattern spans pediatric emergency departments, general practitioners, and private pediatric offices, indicating a need for further research and interventions.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Healthcare Utilization
- Child Health Services
Background:
- Understanding healthcare-seeking behaviors in children is crucial for optimizing care delivery.
- Previous studies have not fully elucidated the patterns of healthcare visits surrounding pediatric emergency department (PED) encounters for common illnesses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the frequency of healthcare visits before and after a PED visit for common childhood illnesses.
- To identify factors associated with multiple healthcare visits in young children.
Main Methods:
- Prospective cohort study involving 501 children under 6 years old discharged from a tertiary care PED.
- Follow-up data collected via telephone 8 days post-discharge, including information on all healthcare facility visits.
- Analysis of visit patterns across different healthcare settings (PED, general practitioners, private pediatric offices).
Main Results:
- 41% of children made multiple healthcare visits for the same illness.
- 28% had previous visits, and 19% had return visits to a healthcare facility.
- Fever was the most common complaint and was linked to a higher frequency of multiple healthcare visits.
Conclusions:
- Multiple healthcare visits for a single illness are common in young children, especially those with fever.
- This phenomenon extends across various healthcare settings, including emergency departments and primary care offices.
- Further research is needed to understand this pattern and develop targeted interventions like parental education and improved information systems.
Unlabelled:
We aim to describe the number of health care visits before and after pediatric emergency department (PED) visits for common illnesses in a French tertiary pediatric hospital. This was a prospective cohort study with 501 children under 6 years of age who were evaluated and discharged from a tertiary care PED. Enrollment occurred on eight randomly selected study days between November 2010 and June 2011. The caregivers were then contacted via telephone 8 days later to obtain follow-up data, including information about return visits to health care facilities. Multiple visits were made by 206 (41 %) children, previous visits had occurred for 139 (28 %) children, and return visits had occurred for 94 (19 %) children. Previous and return visits were made at the PED as well as in general practitioners' offices and private pediatric offices. The median age of the subjects was 18 months. Fever was the most common complaint and was associated with more frequent multiple heath care visits.
Conclusion:
Multiple heath care visits for the same illness are frequent, especially for febrile children. Interestingly, this phenomenon concerns every type of health care facility, including the PED, general practitioners' offices, and private pediatric offices. Further studies should be performed to achieve a better understanding of this phenomenon and to test specific interventions, such as parental education and improvement of the information system.
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