Archives of disease in childhood
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Equipping the community to measure children's height: the reliability of portable instruments.
To compare (1) the reliability of two expensive and two inexpensive measuring instruments, suitable for use in the community and (2) the reliability of experienced compared with inexperienced observers. ⋯ Inexpensive height measuring equipment, once accurately installed, is no less reliable than the most expensive. Inexperienced observers can, with care, measure as reliably as those with long experience. Every effort should be made, however, to ensure that the progress of individual children is monitored not only by the same observer, but on a long term basis.
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Paediatric inpatient utilisation in a district general hospital was studied for 20 general practices covering a population of 26,433 children. The factors influencing the rate and route of admission (general practitioner (GP) or accident and emergency department) were analysed for 894 emergency non-traumatic admissions over a 12 month period. The overall rate of acute, nontraumatic admission was 33.8/1000; 35% of these admissions were via the accident and emergency department. ⋯ Using multiple logistic regression analysis, the risk of being admitted via the accident and emergency department relative to GP admission was shown to be higher for older children (odds ratio for each year of age 1.05) and less for children registered with large practices with more GPs (odds ratio for each extra GP 0.36) or practices with more children under 15 (odds ratio per extra child 0.9991). Access to hospital as measured by isochrone bars and social characteristics of the ward of residence of each child admitted were not associated with the route of admission. The admission rate for each practice was positively, but not statistically significantly, associated with the unemployment rate attributed to the list, the unemployment rate of the ward where the practice was located, and the percentage of admissions via accident and emergency, and negatively associated with the percentage of the list under 15 years.