Manageability of pediatric patients presenting to the emergency department in a primary care facility

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: The number of patient admissions in emergency services is increasing day by day. Determining the factors such as the usage characteristics of the emergency service, its reasons, socio-demographic characteristics and qualifications of frequent emergency patients will shed light on the development of appropriate health policies. From this point of view, it was aimed to evaluate the urgency status of patients who applied to the pediatric emergency service. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study, which is within the scope of the specialty in medicine thesis, was applied to the parents and pediatric emergency physicians of the patients who applied to Sakarya Eğitim Araştırma Hospital Pediatric Emergency Service between 01.12.2022 and 31.12.2022. Our study is a research conducted on survey questions. The sample of the study; The 95% confidence interval was calculated as 378 participant by taking 50% of the inappropriate emergency room use frequency. The data of the study were prepared in the form of a questionnaire, including socio-demographic characteristics, the way they use health services, and the results of the physicians' evaluation of the patient. RESULTS: Of the children admitted to our study, 208 (55,0%) were boys and 170 (45,0%) were girls. Their ages ranged from 0.0 to 17,0, with a mean of 6 (4,7) and a median of 5 years. The number of participants who first applied to the emergency department when their children fell ill was 177 (46,8%). When the reasons for the admission of sick children to the emergency department were examined, it was found that the most common complaint was cough, and the most common diagnosis was Upper Respiratory Tract Infection. It was determined that 70.6% of the patients who applied could be managed in primary care. When the urgency scores of the parents and physicians were compared, the urgency scores of the physicians were lower in each component of the thoughts about health institutions. (p value <0.05). CONCLUSION: One of the important reasons why parents apply to pediatric emergency services instead of using family medicine health services for their children is the wrong perception of urgency of the parents. For this reason, it is extremely important for parents to properly manage their children's health status in the use of emergency services. Before coming to the ED, parents should be encouraged to prefer primary health care services. Keywords: Emergency admission, inappropriat eus, pediatric emergency department, perception of urgency