Journal of paediatrics and child health
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J Paediatr Child Health · May 2017
Observational StudyWhy do children present to emergency departments? Exploring motivators and measures of presentation appropriateness for children presenting to a paediatric emergency department.
To compare the parental motivators and referring general practitioner's (GP's) reasons for advising emergency department (ED) attendance with the assessment of ED medical staff. To compare ED clinician opinion with other published methods that have attempted to define 'primary care suitable' presentations to the ED. ⋯ We caution that many strategies attempting to 'solve' the issue of increasing ED attendances by paediatric patients have been driven by opinion, and a better understanding of the motivators that drive this behaviour is needed. We believe the solution to increasing utilisation of EDs by children must be a balanced approach that addresses community expectations and appropriately resources EDs.