Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Jan 29, 2021
Date Accepted: May 12, 2021
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Profile of self-triage with a cellphone app for pediatric emergency patients: A population-based study in Japan
ABSTRACT
Background:
When children suffer sudden illness or injury, many parents wonder whether they should go to the hospital immediately or call an ambulance. In 2015, we developed a mobile app that allows parents or guardians to determine the urgency of their child’s condition or call an ambulance, and which indicates available hospitals and clinics when their child is suddenly sick or injured by simply selecting the child’s chief complaints and symptoms. However, the effectiveness of medical apps used by the general public has not been well evaluated.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to reveal a profile of the use of this mobile app based on data usage in the app.
Methods:
This study was a descriptive epidemiological study with a 4-year study period running from January 2016 to December 2019. We included cases in which the app was used either by the children themselves or by their parents and other guardians. The cases in which the app was downloaded but never actually used were excluded from this study. Continuous variables are presented as medians and interquartile range (IQR), and categorical variables are presented as actual number and percentages.
Results:
The app was used during the study period for 59,375 children whose median age was 1 year (IQR: 0-3 years). The app was used for 33,874 (57.1%) infants, 16,228 (27.3%) toddlers, 8,102 (13.6%) elementary school students, 1117 (1.9%) junior high school students, and 54 (0.1%) were unknown. Among them, 31,519 (53.1%) were male, 27,329 (46.0%) were female, and sex was unknown for 527 (0.9%). “Sickness” was chosen for 49,101 (78.5%) patients, and “Injury, poisoning, foreign substances and others” was chosen for 13,441 (21.5%). For “Sickness”, “fever” was most commonly selected (22,773, 36.4%), followed by “cough” (4054, 6.5%) and “nausea/vomiting” (3528, 5.6%), whereas for “Injury, poisoning, foreign substances and others”, “head and neck injury” was most commonly selected (3887, 6.2%), followed “face and extremities injury” (1493, 2.4%) and “injury and foreign substances in eyes” (1255, 2.0%).
Conclusions:
This study revealed the profile of use of a self-triage app for pediatric emergency patients in Japan.
Citation
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