"Anticipatory Guidance in the Nursery and Its Impact on Non-urgent Emergency Department Visits"

Plain-language summary

Kennedy et al, in a study of pediatric Emergency Department (ED) use by newborns less than 14 days of age, revealed that half of all visits in this population were non-acute problems. Other pediatric ED utilization studies have shown similar findings in that 32% to 72% of all visits were for non-urgent problems. Many studies have found that primiparity and young maternal age are associated with non-acute ED presentations. A recent factor that has been investigated is the effect of early neonatal discharge. Some other factors are nonwhite mothers and mothers on Medicaid. Zandieh et al, found additional predisposing determinants for non-urgent ED visits, such as single parenthood, Hispanic ethnicity, and having perceptions that their child's overall physical health was poor. Paradis et al found that parents receiving a video intervention rated higher confidence with specific infant care skills and reported feeling better prepared to care for their baby, compared to parents receiving only handouts. However, there isn't any reported study that evaluates the benefits of receiving both, a video intervention along with handouts. Aim: to demonstrate whether conducting anticipatory guidance related to non-urgent problems will reduce non-urgent ED visits, compared to care as usual (CAU) anticipatory guidance (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Shaken Baby Syndrome videos; and unstructured talk about jaundice, vaccinations, appointments, care of umbilical stump, normal urination and bowel movement, fever).

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