Pediatric Emergency MedicineWhy Do Parents Bring Children to the Emergency Department for Nonurgent Conditions? A Qualitative Study
Section snippets
Methods
Ethnographic interviews were conducted over a 4-week period in June to July 2005 with a consecutive series of caregivers (henceforth referred to as “parents”) of children presenting for care to the ED of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which serves a combined urban/suburban population with 55 000 visits per year. Parents were eligible to participate if they brought their child to the ED for care during hours when physicians’ offices are routinely open (Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 4 PM) and
Results
Fifty-four eligible families were identified during the study period (Figure). Nine of these left the ED prior to being asked to participate in the study. Of the 45 eligible families who were approached, 12 chose not to participate. Thirty-one interviews were completed and audiotaped.
The 31 completed interviews involved 37 caregivers and 34 children (Table 2), since some children were accompanied by more than 1 caregiver, and some families brought more than 1 child to the ED. Caregivers
Discussion
To reduce nonurgent pediatric ED use and ensure that all children receive high-quality primary care, it is imperative to understand parents’ reasons for choosing the ED over primary care practices for nonurgent pediatric care. In fact, a previous study documents that attempts to decrease nonurgent ED use by simply diverting children to their PCP were unsuccessful in altering future behavior, potentially because the underlying concerns of parents were not addressed.30 Our study findings indicate
Conclusions
Parents bring their children to EDs for nonurgent care because of PCP referral, efficiency, dissatisfaction with PCPs, perceived higher quality of care in the ED, long waits to see PCPs, and PCP communication problems. Although parents report that education on the urgency of pediatric conditions would be helpful, substantial reduction of pediatric nonurgent ED use may require improvements in families’ PCP office access, efficiency, experiences, and appointment scheduling.
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by a grant to A.B. and G.F. from the APS/SPR Summer Student Research Program (2 T-35 grant HD 007446) and in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Physician Faculty Scholars Program to J.M.B.
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2022, Journal of Pediatric NursingCitation Excerpt :Non-urgent use of PEDs is a common problem that has increased over the past decade. Many scholars have investigated why parents choose PEDs instead of seeking primary care for their children's non-urgent conditions (Berry et al., 2008; May et al., 2018; Morrison et al., 2014; Uscher-Pines et al., 2013). Findings show that parents distrust the pediatric knowledge of primary care practitioners and perceive PEDs to be more accessible.
Factors associated with patients bypassing primary healthcare centres in Qassim Region, KSA
2021, Journal of Taibah University Medical SciencesCitation Excerpt :Several studies in KSA demonstrated patients' satisfaction with high quality of healthcare and services provided in the PHCs.6,9,15 However, studies have also shown that the ratio of patients with mild ailments at PHCs has continuously declined, whereas the burden of non-urgent patients in emergency departments of public hospitals has increased.16,17 Dawoud et al. indicated that emergency departments in KSA are overcrowded with non-urgent patients, despite the availability of PHCs to deal with such cases.18
Presented in part at the Pediatric Academic Societies' Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Calif, May 2, 2006; AcademyHealth, Seattle, Wash, June 25, 2006; and American Public Health Association, Boston, Mass, November 7, 2006.