Who attends a Children's Hospital Emergency Department for dental reasons? A two‐step cluster analysis approach

Abstract

A significant number of visits to the ED were for dental reasons with two clusters of children. The results have identified groups of patients for whom appropriate dental provision is lacking and where targeted services are needed to improve outcomes for children and reduce the burden on EDs.

Medical emergency department attendance of under 16‐year‐olds with dental problems

“…All show a general rise in attendance rate, which is also seen in this study. A cluster analysis performed in 2017 found increasing attendance of under 16‐year‐olds to MED for dental problems compared with data from 2004 . They found similar to the results of this study that those attending with non‐traumatic diagnoses tended to be from more deprived areas, thus highlighting possible inequalities in oral health.…”

“…A cluster analysis performed in 2017 found increasing attendance of under 16-year-olds to MED for dental problems compared with data from 2004. 16 They found similar to the results of this study that those attending with non-traumatic diagnoses tended to be from more deprived areas, thus highlighting possible inequalities in oral health. In addition, those who attended with non-traumatic diagnoses often had a delayed presentation of more than 24 hours from onset of symptoms and tended to be prescribed medication rather than being referred to an appropriate healthcare professional such as a GDP to carry out definite treatment.…”

“…This study was only conducted at one MED; therefore, we cannot assume similar findings would be seen at different MED across the rest of the UK. However, findings from previous studies such as Marshman et al and Dorfman et al found a similar prevalence and confirm this is both a national and international issue.…”

“…They found similar to the results of this study that those attending with non‐traumatic diagnoses tended to be from more deprived areas, thus highlighting possible inequalities in oral health. In addition, those who attended with non‐traumatic diagnoses often had a delayed presentation of more than 24 hours from onset of symptoms and tended to be prescribed medication rather than being referred to an appropriate healthcare professional such as a GDP to carry out definite treatment . Currie et al looked at all patient attendance to a MED in Newcastle Upon Tyne over a 3‐year period, they found 0.8% (n = 2821) of attendances were for dental problems.…”

“…There were marginally more male patients (54.4%) than female patients (45.6%) attending. Over the 5 years, there were six repeat attendances in the 0-5 age category, one in the 6-11 age category and 5 in the [12][13][14][15][16] age category. Table 2 shows diagnosis and disposition of attendance to the MED.…”