• Am. J. Dis. Child. · Aug 1993

    Advice seeking and appropriate use of a pediatric emergency department.

    • T F Oberlander, I B Pless, and G E Dougherty.
    • Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA.
    • Am. J. Dis. Child. 1993 Aug 1;147(8):863-7.

    ObjectivesTo determine whether seeking advice prior to an unscheduled visit to a pediatric emergency department (PED) influences appropriate use of this setting for minor illnesses.DesignCross-sectional questionnaire survey.SettingThe medical emergency department of the Montreal (Quebec) Children's Hospital, a major referral and urban teaching hospital.ParticipantsFour hundred eighty-nine of 562 consecutive parents visiting the PED over two periods, one in February and the other in July 1989.InterventionsNone.Measurements/Main ResultsParents of children between 0 and 18 years of age visiting the PED were asked whether they had previously sought advice from family, friends, or a physician. Other factors possibly related to the decision to seek care were also measured. Appropriateness was rated, blind to discharge diagnosis, by two pediatricians using a structured series of questions incorporating the child's age, time of the visit, clinical state, and problem at presentation. Thirty-four percent of visits among respondents were judged appropriate. In bivariate analysis, appropriate visits occurred significantly more often when a parent spoke to both a physician and a nonphysician (47%) prior to visiting the PED than when no advice was sought (29%; P < .05). In multivariate analysis, having a regular physician and being one of two children also contributed to appropriateness.ConclusionsAppropriate use of the PED was positively influenced by seeking prior advice from both a physician and family member, having a regular physician, and having prior child care experience.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…