Pilot study of a telephone paediatric consultation

Introduction: Paediatric emergencies in primary care have increased dramatically in the last years. The chief complaints are often mild diseases that clutters the casualty wards and obstruct critical child care.

We present a pilot study in the paediatric population of an urban health centre, after the implementation of the telephone consultation for 6 months.

Material and methods: The study was performed with a prospective phase over six months and a retrospective analysis of the information generated. We included as subjects all those who requested telephone consultation. In each of these people were collected demographic, socio-sanitary, epidemiological and clinical variables.

Results: A total of 419 telephone consultations were managed, 37% were attended by residents, 33% by paediatricians and 30% by paediatric nurses. Forty-eight percent of the handled cases were children under 2 years, and there were no differences between sexes. The most frequent reasons for consultation were gastrointestinal symptoms and fever. Within the next 24 hours, it was found that the consultation was resolved in 56% of the cases, 27% went to their paediatrician, 15% needed to go to the emergency room and only 1% required admission. It showed an average satisfaction of 9.24.

Conclusions: The conclusions highlight that telephone consultation address adequately most health problems encountered and provides very high levels of satisfaction among the population served.