Structure of the paediatric population attending the Emergency Service. Roberto del Rio Children´s Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Planning and policy making for an Emergency Service (ES) requires clinical and epidemiological information about the population structure attending the ES. 

Objective: To study the morbidity and demographic structure of the population attending the Roberto del Rio Children´s Hospital ES. 

Methods: A random sample drawn from the charts of paediatric patients attending the ES during 2002, with a sample sufficiente to detect morbidity rates not lower than 0.005, with 95% confidence limits of ± 0.002. 

Results: Of 4 356 charts, 10.74% were refered from primary atention centers, the remaining 89.26% were self-consultants. 53% were male, mean age was 52 months (SD = 49.5). The main causes of consult were, fever 45.45%, respiratory 18.42%, digestive 16.27% and pain 10.79%. 6.5% of patients were admitted to hospital. The most frequent diagnoses were upper respiratory infection 19.7%, obstructive bronchitis 11.74%, acute diarrhea 10.63%, acute bronchitis 8.04% and fever of unknown cause 5.48%. 

Comments: This study allowed the first overview of the local population structure of the attending population. The absence of life threatening illnesses may have been due to the sample size. Omission of relevant clinical information was common in the clinical charts.