Critical interventions, diagnosis, and mortality in children treated by a physician-manned mobile emergency care unit.

Background: The purpose of this study was to clarify the potentially life-saving critical interventions performed on children below the age of seven by the physician-manned mobile emergency care unit (MECU) in Odense, Denmark. We investigated critical interventions in relation to morbidity and mortality.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of all MECU missions involving children below the age of seven. The study period was from October 1 2007 to December 31 2020. Data sources were the MECU Odense database, the Danish National Patient Registry, and the Danish Civil Registration System. Variables were critical interventions, the severity of injury/illness, MECU on-scene time, in-hospital diagnosis and 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day mortality.

Results: The MECU carried out 4,032 missions to children below 7 years. 88 patients (2.2%) received at least one critical prehospital intervention. Upper airway suction was performed in 39 cases (1.0%), endotracheal intubation (all causes) in 36 cases (0.9%), and intraosseous access in 21 cases (0.5%). General anaesthesia was induced in 29 cases (0.7%). Seventeen patients (0.4%) received cardiopulmonary resuscitation and two patients received manual defibrillation (< 0.1%). 3,278 patients were admitted to the hospital and assigned a diagnosis when discharged. The most common diagnoses were assigned within the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision Chapter XVIII (Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified), which includes febrile convulsions. 1,437 patients (43.8%) were assigned diagnoses within this diagnosis group. The overall 7-day mortality in the cohort was 0.74%, 30-day mortality was 0.82%, and 90-day mortality was 1.02%.

Conclusion: Prehospital critical interventions are rarely performed in children under the age of 7 years. The low frequency of these interventions may have implications for maintaining the clinical routine of the prehospital care providers.