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Pediatric pre-hospital emergencies in Belgium: a 2-year national descriptive study

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Abstract

This study aims to describe the pediatric physician-staffed EMS missions at a national level and to compare the pediatric and the adult EMS missions. Using a national database, we analyzed 254,812 interventions including 15,294 (6 %) pediatric emergencies. Less children than adults received an intravenous infusion (52.7 versus 77.1 %, p < 0.001), but the intra-osseous access was used more frequently in children (1.3 versus 0.8 %, p < 0.001). More children than adults benefited from a therapeutic immobilization (16.3 versus 13.2 %, p < 0.001). Endotracheal intubation was rare in children (2.1 %) as well as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (1.2 %). Children were more likely than adults to suffer from a neurological problem (32.4 versus 21.3 %, p < 0.001) or from a trauma (27.1 versus 16.8 %, p < 0.001). The prevalence of the pediatric diagnoses showed an age dependency: the respiratory problems were more prevalent in infants (40.3 % of the 0–12-months old), 52.1 % of the 1–4-year-old children suffered from a neurological problem, and the prevalence of trauma raised from 14.8 % of the infants to 47.1 % of the 11–15 year olds.

Conclusion: Pre-hospital pediatric EMS missions are not frequent and differ from the adult interventions. The pediatric characteristics highlighted in this study should help EMS teams to be better prepared to deal with sick children in the pre-hospital setting.

What is Known:

• Pediatric and adult emergencies differ.

• Pediatric life-threatening emergencies are not frequent.

What is New:

• This study is the first to describe a European national cohort of pediatric physician-staffed EMS missions and to compare the pediatric and the adult missions at a national level.

• This large cohort study confirms scarce regional data indicating that pediatric pre-hospital emergencies are not frequent and mostly non-life-threatening.

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Abbreviations

CPR:

Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation

ED:

Emergency department

EMS:

Emergency medical service

ERMU:

Emergency and resuscitation mobile unit

ICD-9:

International classification of disease, 9th edition

IQR:

Interquartile range

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Belgian Federal Public Health Service for having prepared and delivered the data. We also thank Dr Oliver Karam for help reviewing the manuscript.

Author contributions

PD, FL, and AM conceived the study. PD obtained the data from the Belgian Federal Public Health Service and analyzed the data. PD and AM drafted the manuscript and all authors contributed substantially to its revision. PD, FL, and AM take responsibility for the paper as a whole.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of pediatric critical care medicine, Department of Pediatrics, CHC, Clinique de l’Espérance, Rue Saint-Nicolas 447, 4420, Liège, Belgium

    Pierre Demaret, Frédéric Lebrun, Isabelle Loeckx & André Mulder

  2. Intensive care unit, CHC, Clinique Saint-Joseph, Rue de Hesbaye 75, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Pierre Demaret & Philippe Devos

  3. Division of pediatric emergencies, Department of Pediatrics, CHC, Clinique de l’Espérance, Rue Saint-Nicolas 447, 4420, Liège, Belgium

    Frédéric Lebrun, Caroline Champagne, Roland Lemaire & Marie Messens

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  1. Pierre Demaret
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  2. Frédéric Lebrun
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  8. André Mulder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pierre Demaret.

Ethics declarations

This study has been approved by the Belgian commission for the protection of privacy: the sector committee of social security and health analyzed the study protocol and ensured the supervision of the communication of the anonymized data.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Communicated by Mario Bianchetti

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Demaret, P., Lebrun, F., Devos, P. et al. Pediatric pre-hospital emergencies in Belgium: a 2-year national descriptive study. Eur J Pediatr 175, 921–930 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-016-2723-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-016-2723-9

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