Distribution, Consequences, and Determinants of Time to Antibiotics in Children With Community-Onset Severe Bacterial Infection: A Secondary Analysis of a Prospective Population-Based Study.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the distribution, consequences and potential determinants of time to antibiotics administration in children with community-onset severe bacterial infections (COSBIs). DESIGN: Secondary analysis of the available data from a prospective population-based study from 2009 to 2014. SETTING: An administrative area in western France accounting for 13% of the national pediatric population. PATIENTS: All children from 1 month to 16 years old admitted to a PICU or who died before admission and had a COSBI. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The time to antibiotics was divided into patient interval (from first signs of COSBI to the first medical consultation) and medical interval (from the first consultation to appropriate antibiotics administration). The association between the medical interval and child outcome was studied by a multinomial logistic regression model and the potential determinants of the patient and medical intervals were by a Cox proportional-hazards model. Of the 227 children included (median age 2.1 yr), 22 died (9.7%), and 21 (9.3%) had severe sequelae at PICU discharge. Median patient and medical intervals were 7.0 hours (interquartile range [IQR], 2.0-16.5 hr) and 3.3 hours (IQR, 1.1-12.2 hr), respectively. The last quartile of medical interval was not associated with death (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 3.7; 95% CI, 0.8-17.5) or survival with severe sequelae (aOR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.4-4.0) versus survival without severe sequelae. Patient interval was shorter in younger children (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.95; 95% CI, 0.92-0.99), and medical interval was reduced when the first consultation was conducted in a hospital (aHR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1-2.0) versus outpatient medicine. CONCLUSIONS: For children with COSBI, we found no significant association between medical interval and mortality or severe sequelae. An initial hospital referral could help reduce the time to antibiotics in COSBIs.

Impact of Deprivation on the Incidence and Severity of Tuberculosis in Children: A Retrospective Study from 2007 to 2020 in a Tertiary Care Center in Paris, France.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between deprivation and the incidence and clinical severity of tuberculosis (TB) in children. STUDY DESIGN: Children ≤18 years old who were admitted for TB between 2007 and 2020 at a tertiary hospital were included in this retrospective study. Deprivation was assessed using the French Deprivation Index. TB severity was assessed using the Wiseman classification. Multivariate analyses were carried out. RESULTS: In total, 222 patients were included. The median age was 10.8 years (IQR 4.5-14.4). TB was considered severe in 126 patients (56.8%), with 50% of the patients included in the 2 most deprived groups. The most-deprived children had a TB incidence that was 58 times greater than that of the least-deprived children (95% CI 28.49-119.40). There was no significant association between deprivation and severity in the multivariable analysis after adjusting for age and circumstances of diagnosis. Deprivation was associated with an increased length of stay in the most-deprived groups (OR 3.79, 95% CI 1.55-10.23). There was a trend toward a greater proportion of symptomatic children in the most-deprived group. CONCLUSIONS: TB incidence and hospital length of stay increased with deprivation levels but not with the severity of TB.

Suboptimal care was frequent in severe child physical abuse cases and was mainly related to delayed diagnoses and ineffective secondary prevention.

AIM: Our aim was to assess suboptimal care before a diagnosis of severe child physical abuse in western France. METHODS: A confidential inquiry was carried out, based on children under 6 years of age who were hospitalised in the Nantes regional university hospital from 2016 to 2018. Two researchers retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all the children who were reported to the authorities for suspected severe child physical abuse. Two experts determined the optimality of care and identified the main categories of suboptimal care. RESULTS: The median age of the 94 children included in the study was 8 months. A fifth of them had intra-cranial injuries and a quarter had fractures. One child died and a third had severe sequelae at hospital discharge. Included children frequently (37%) received suboptimal care before the diagnosis of severe CPA and this fell into two categories: delayed diagnosis was experienced by 17% and ineffective secondary prevention by 22%. CONCLUSION: Suboptimal care for severe child physical abuse was frequent and fell into two categories: delayed diagnosis and ineffective secondary prevention. These results can help us to design corrective actions.

Measurement, consequences and determinants of time to diagnosis in children with new-onset heart failure: A population-based retrospective study (DIACARD study).

BACKGROUND: Time from first symptoms to diagnosis, called time to diagnosis, is related to prognosis in several diseases. The aim of this study was to assess time to diagnosis in children with new-onset heart failure (HF) and assess its consequences and determinants. METHODS: A retrospective population-based observational study was conducted between 2007 and 2016 in a French tertiary care center. We included all children under 16 years old with no known heart disease, and HF confirmed by echocardiography. With logistic regression used for outcomes and a Cox proportional-hazards model for determinants, analyses were stratified by HF etiology: congenital heart diseases (CHD) and cardiomyopathies/myocarditis (CM). RESULTS: A total of 117 children were included (median age [interquartile range (IQR)] 25 days (6-146), 50.4% were male, 60 had CHD and 57 had CM). Overall median (IQR) time to diagnosis was 3.3 days (1.0-21.2). The frequency of 1-year mortality was 17% and 1-year neuromotor sequel 18%. Death at 1 year was associated with low birth weight for all patients (adjusted odds ratio 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.08-0.68) and time to diagnosis below the median with CM (0.09, 0.01-0.87) but not time to diagnosis above the median for all patients (0.59, 0.13-2.66). Short time to diagnosis was associated with clinical severity on the first day of symptoms for all patients (adjusted hazard ratio 3.39, 95% CI 2.01-5.72), and young age with CM (0.09, 0.02-0.41). CONCLUSIONS: In children with new-onset HF presenting in our region, median time to diagnosis was short. Long time to diagnosis was not associated with poor outcome.