The role of family health centres in preventing paediatric emergency department usage of parents of children with non-urgent conditions.

Abstract

Background: Overcrowding in paediatric emergency departments (PEDs) has become a global public health issue, reducing healthcare quality, increasing dissatisfaction, and driving up costs. Overcrowding in PEDs not only affects patient satisfaction and healthcare costs but also can lead to burnout among healthcare professionals. This burnout could potentially result in suboptimal care for truly severe cases, ultimately increasing morbidity and mortality rates among patients requiring urgent attention. This study aims to determine how family health centres can reduce paediatric visits to PEDs and provide recommendations for alleviating overcrowding.

Methods: This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants were parents whose children were admitted to the PED at a tertiary hospital located in southeast Turkey. The data were collected between 15/05/2024-26/08/2024. This study was completed with 657 parents. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit participants. SPSS 11.5 software was used for data analysis.

Results: The mean age of the parents and children brought to the PED was 31.99 ± 8.51 years and 4.20 ± 4.08 years, respectively. Of the children, 32.1% were admitted to the PED due to fever. Majority of parents (65%) visited the PED outside working hours. 8.8% of parents considered their child's health condition as "very urgent", 54.5% of them considered it as "urgent". The majority of parents thought that the PEDs were overcrowded (82.2%). 50.4% of the parents stated that they trusted the PED, and 52.7% stated that they were satisfied with the PED. More than half of the parents (61.8%) stated that they did not visit their family health centre before visiting the PED. 10.8% of parents reported that they had never visited a family health centre in the last year. Majority of parents (62.7%) stated that they will visit the PED again if their children have the same health problems in the future.

Conclusion: Improving the use of family health centres, introducing out-of-hours services, and enhancing parents' health literacy could shift non-urgent visits from PEDs to primary care settings. In addition, making parents more aware of services provided in family health centres could affect parents' health-seeking behaviours and choose to use their GP rather than PED for their children with non-urgent conditions.