• Scott McNeil, Nikita Goyal, Mandy Parr, John Cheek, Gary Freed, Alastair Meyer, Adam West, and Simon Craig.
• Monash Emergency Research Collaborative, Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
• Emerg Med Australas. 2024 Oct 21.

AimTo describe sources of advice and the recommendations given to parents/guardians prior to attending ED with their child.MethodsThis was a prospective observational study of patients presenting to two EDs of a multi-centre Victorian Health service in June 2016. Data collection involved surveying all parents/guardians attending paediatric ED during a 1-week period by trained research assistants. We determined the proportion of eligible respondents who sought advice before attending ED, the source of advice, and the type of advice provided.ResultsOne thousand sixty-nine patients presented to ED over the 1-week period. There were 730 responses to the survey, of which 65% (477/730) had received a total of 620 recommendations prior to ED attendance. Seventy-six per cent (362/477) had received advice from a single source, 19% (90/477) had received advice from 2 sources, and 5% (25/477) from 3 or more sources. The most common sources of advice were general practice consultations (49%), friends/family (13.5%), and NURSE-ON-CALL (11%). Fifty-four per cent (335/620) of the recommendations were to attend ED immediately and 12% (77/620) were to attend if their child was getting worse.ConclusionsMost parents and guardians sought advice from a single source prior to attending an ED. The most common source of advice was consultation with a general practitioner and the most common recommendation was to attend ED immediately, or if their child's condition worsened.© 2024 The Author(s). Emergency Medicine Australasia published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.

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