Pediatric screening urinalysis: a difference-in-differences analysis of how a 2007 change in guidelines impacted use

Practice guidelines can promote higher-quality care, yet they are inconsistently adopted. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to discontinue routine screening urinalysis in children.

Using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, we used a difference-in-differences approach to estimate visit-level screening urinalysis proportions before (2005-2006, n = 1,247) and after (2008-2009, n = 1,772) the 2007 AAP recommendation. We compared visits by children 4-18 years old to visits by young adults aged 19-32. Analyses were adjusted for continuous patient age, patient race/ethnicity, physician specialty, and stratified by patient gender and visit setting.

The 2007 recommendation was associated with no significant change in adjusted visit-level screening urinalysis proportions in child visits (20.4% to 22.5%) compared to an increase in young adult visits (20.1% to 27.0%) - a differential impact of -4.8 percentage points (95% Confidence Interval [CI] -9.0, -0.5). In private practices, visit proportions differentially decreased by 7.6 percentage points (95% CI -13.7, -1.5) in female children and by 0.5 percentage points (95% CI -10.6, 9.6) in male children. In community health centers, visit proportions differentially decreased by 17.4 percentage points (95% CI -27.9, -6.8) in female children and by 33.5 percentage points (95% CI -47.4, -19.7) in male children.

A 2007 recommendation to discontinue routine screening urinalysis in children was associated with no change in use in child visits relative to an increase in use in adult visits. Overall, nearly one-quarter of child visits still included screening urinalysis.