This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Travel history aids in pediatric illness diagnoses at ED
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Children are susceptible to a wide array of travel-related illness, making a detailed travel history crucial to the diagnostic process for pediatric patients visiting the ED, according to a study in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
“This study shows that it is not always an exotic diagnosis such as dengue or tuberculosis, which may lead to hospitalization of a child returning from international travel.” Christoph Berger, MD, of the division of infectious diseases and hospital epidemiology at the University Children’s Hospital Zürich, Switzerland, and colleagues wrote. “Often, in a child, it is travelers’ diarrhea that may require hospitalization, and this can be contracted at all travel destinations.”
The researchers studied children presenting at an ED in Switzerland between 2007 and 2012. Patients were aged younger than 16 years with travel-related illness confirmed by a physician.
Of the 179,100 pediatric patients presenting at the ED, 801 were diagnosed with travel-related illness. Of these, 53.4% were visiting friends or relatives, 43.4% were tourists and 2.4% were immigrants.
Study data also showed that 10.4% of children diagnosed with travel-related illness were admitted to the hospital. When compared with outpatients diagnosed with travel-related illnesses, inpatients were significantly more likely to have traveled to Southern Asia, to be diagnosed with Salmonella typhi or paratyphi (P < .0001), pyogenic abscess (P < .0001), or malaria (P = .0384). Neurological diagnosis and nonspecific diagnosis, such as dehydration, also were more likely to be diagnosed among inpatients (P < .0001).
“[Travel] data are also important for pre-travel health advisors to allow them to tailor advice and to focus on the prevention of frequently occurring disorders such as travelers’ diarrhea and less frequent but severe infections such as malaria, hepatitis A and typhoid fever,” Berger and colleagues wrote. – by David Costill
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts