• M D Antón, J C Peña, R Santos, E Sempere, J Martínez, and L A Pérula.
• Unidad Docente de Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria de Córdoba.
• Med Clin Barcelona. 1992 Dec 5; 99 (19): 743-6.

BackgroundThe massification of pediatric hospital emergency departments (PED) is due to bad use of the same by a large number of users. The causes related with this inadequate use have not been properly evaluated.MethodsA sample representative of the population demanding medical care in a PED of a regional hospital was studied with the motives and sociodemographic and cultural factors presumably related with this inadequate demand being analyzed.Results52% of the cases had had no previous contact with the primary level of health care and 79% had gone to the PED on their own initiative. With regard to consultations, 65.0 +/- 4.8% were catalogued as inadequate and a statistical relation was found with the age of the patient (less than one year), place of residence (urban) and the arrival by initiative of the patients themselves.ConclusionsPediatric hospital emergency departments receive a high number of inadequate consultations at the second level of health care. The importance of the age of the patient, accessibility of pediatric hospital emergency departments and who takes the initiative to come must be emphasized as predictive variables of the bad use of these pediatric departments.

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