Emergency department use by paediatric patients in Lombardy Region, Italy: a population study

Objectives To estimate the rate of paediatric attendance at emergency departments (EDs) in the Lombardy Region, Italy, and to determine the factors contributing to different patterns of use. Methods By analysing healthcare administrative databases, ED attendance by 1.6 million youths Results During 2012, 440 284 (27%) of children and adolescents had at least one ED attendance, with trauma (26%) and respiratory tract infections (22%) as the most frequent diagnoses. In all, 533 037 (79%) accesses were for non-urgent reasons, and 12 533 (3% of the ED users) were frequent non-urgent users. Male gender (OR 1.12; 95% CI 1.08 to 1.17), preschool age (OR 3.14; 95% CI 2.98 to 3.31) and place of residence (OR 1.74; 95% CI 1.70 to 1.99) were associated with a higher risk of being a frequent non-urgent user. Moreover, a greater healthcare consumption was observed in this group. Conclusions One out of four children and adolescents attended the ED at least once per year, 3% of whom were frequent non-urgent users, with a high overall healthcare resource consumption.