Beyond clinical urgency: parental awareness, educational level, and non-urgent pediatric emergency department utilization.
Higher parental education level linked to greater responsiveness to emergency-use messaging.
Beyond clinical urgency: parental awareness, educational level, and non-urgent pediatric emergency department utilization.
Non-urgent visits to pediatric emergency departments (pediatric emergency departments) constitute a persistent global problem that strains healthcare resources and may compromise care quality for critically ill patients.
This study aimed to examine the socio-educational determinants of parental responsiveness to emergency-use informational messaging and to characterize the healthcare-seeking behaviors underlying low-acuity pediatric emergency departments utilization at a tertiary-level center with an annual pediatric caseload of approximately 120,000 visits.
In this prospective cross-sectional study, data were collected from parents via structured questionnaires administered during triage.
more educated parents responded better to emergency-use guidance
Agreement between parental urgency perception and Manchester Triage System triage category was minimal (Cohen's κ =0.040, 95% CI -0.035 to 0.116; PABAK=-0.051), with no significant association between subjective urgency perception and objective triage classification ( p = 0.298).
Across triage categories, the expectation of faster medical evaluation was the leading motivation for pediatric emergency departments attendance (36.1%).
These findings suggest that pediatric emergency departments overcrowding is driven not solely by parental knowledge deficits but also by systemic barriers in primary care accessibility and parents' low risk tolerance.
Effective interventions should therefore extend beyond public health education to restructure after-hours primary care as a credible and accessible alternative to emergency services.