Pediatric pre-hospital emergencies in Belgium: a 2-year national descriptive study

This study aims to describe the pediatric physician-staffed EMS missions at a national level and to compare the pediatric and the adult EMS missions. Using a national database, we analyzed 254,812 interventions including 15,294 (6 %) pediatric emergencies. Less children than adults received an intravenous infusion (52.7 versus 77.1 %, p < 0.001), but the intra-osseous access was used more frequently in children (1.3 versus 0.8 %, p < 0.001). More children than adults benefited from a therapeutic immobilization (16.3 versus 13.2 %, p < 0.001). Endotracheal intubation was rare in children (2.1 %) as well as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (1.2 %). Children were more likely than adults to suffer from a neurological problem (32.4 versus 21.3 %, p < 0.001) or from a trauma (27.1 versus 16.8 %, p < 0.001). The prevalence of the pediatric diagnoses showed an age dependency: the respiratory problems were more prevalent in infants (40.3 % of the 0-12-months old), 52.1 % of the 1-4-year-old children suffered from a neurological problem, and the prevalence of trauma raised from 14.8 % of the infants to 47.1 % of the 11-15 year olds.

Pre-hospital pediatric EMS missions are not frequent and differ from the adult interventions. The pediatric characteristics highlighted in this study should help EMS teams to be better prepared to deal with sick children in the pre-hospital setting.

• Pediatric and adult emergencies differ. • Pediatric life-threatening emergencies are not frequent. What is New: • This study is the first to describe a European national cohort of pediatric physician-staffed EMS missions and to compare the pediatric and the adult missions at a national level. • This large cohort study confirms scarce regional data indicating that pediatric pre-hospital emergencies are not frequent and mostly non-life-threatening.