The demographical and ecological characteristics of a large urban pediatric outpatient population and implications for improving community pedatric care.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The 3,058 patients in a large urban hospital Pediatric Emergency Room [ER] were interviewed by specially trained students administering a structured questionnaire. Families of the children in this study represented largely minority ethnic groups living in the central area of the city and often supported by welfare funds. Most of the families were urban migrants accustomed to using public medical facilities and apparently unable to establish and maintain relations with private physicians for themselves or their children. In only half the families were both a mother and a father present in the home. Twenty-five per cent of the disease was chronic and much of the acute disease was very mild. It appears that many of these families use the fragmented care of the Pediatric Emergency Room as the only medical supervision for their children. The study highlights the need for new, imaginative approaches in Pediatric Emergency Rooms and Outpatient Department. The expanded use of ancillary personnel such as social workers, public health nurses, health educators, and indigenous trained health aides, utilizing individual and group technique and appropriate materials such as throughtfully designed health literature is worthy of exploration. Comprehensive health servies for acute care should be available in the ER and offered to the child and his family. This may be one of the few contacts of this child with a physician.

This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit: