Verbal Autopsy to Assess Postdischarge Mortality in Children With Suspected Sepsis in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Reducing child mortality in low-income countries is constrained by a lack of vital statistics. In the absence of such data, verbal autopsies provide an acceptable method to determining attributable causes of death. The objective was to assess potential causes of pediatric postdischarge mortality in children younger than age 5 years (under-5) originally admitted for suspected sepsis using verbal autopsies. METHODS: Secondary analysis of verbal autopsy data from children admitted to 6 hospitals across Uganda from July 2017 to March 2020. Structured verbal autopsy interviews were conducted for all deaths within 6 months after discharge. Two physicians independently classified a primary cause of death, up to 4 alternative causes, and up to 5 contributing conditions using the Start-Up Mortality List, with discordance resolved by consensus. RESULTS: Verbal autopsies were completed for 361 (98.6%) of the 366 (5.9%) children who died among 6191 discharges (median admission age: 5.4 months [interquartile range, 1.8-16.7]; median time to mortality: 28 days [interquartile range, 9-74]). Most deaths (62.3%) occurred in the community. Leading primary causes of death, assigned in 356 (98.6%) of cases, were pneumonia (26.2%), sepsis (22.1%), malaria (8.5%), and diarrhea (7.9%). Common contributors to death were malnutrition (50.5%) and anemia (25.7%). Reviewers were less confident in their causes of death for neonates than older children (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Postdischarge mortality frequently occurred in the community in children admitted for suspected sepsis in Uganda. Analyses of the probable causes for these deaths using verbal autopsies suggest potential areas for interventions, focused on early detection of infections, as well as prevention and treatment of underlying contributors such as malnutrition and anemia.

Physical restraint use in children with mental and behavioral health emergencies in the prehospital setting.

Objective: Emergency medical services (EMS) transport for mental and behavioral health (MBH) emergencies occurs frequently in children, yet little is understood regarding prehospital physical restraint use despite the potential for serious adverse events. We aim to describe restraint use prevalence and primary impressions among children with MBH emergencies. Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of children with MBH emergencies evaluated by Alameda County (ALCO), California EMS from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2018. Patient demographics and clinical variables were collected from the EMS records including sex, age at time of encounter, year of encounter, transport destination, medication use, and primary impression(s). The primary outcome was the use of physical restraints. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the primary outcome and associated demographic and diagnostic features, as well as temporal use patterns. Sex and age were compared between restrained and non-restrained youth using chi-square analysis. Results: Over the 7-year study period, ALCO EMS transported 9775 children with MBH emergencies. Of these transports, 1205 (12.3%) were physically restrained. Most children restrained had the primary impression of "behavioral/psychiatric crisis" (51.1%), "psychiatric crisis" (27.4%), and "behavioral-other" (12.4%) and the remaining children (9.1%) had a non-psychiatric/behavioral health primary impression. Over time, there was no statistically significant change in either number of children with MBH emergencies transported or physical restraint rate. Conclusions: More than 1 in 8 children with MBH emergencies are being physically restrained during EMS transport. Restraint rate did not substantially change over time. Further studies to understand existing restraint rates and EMS resources available to address acute agitation in children are needed to inform quality and care enhancing initiatives.

Development of a simple, practice-based tool to assess quality of paediatric emergency care delivery in resource-limited settings: identifying critical actions via a Delphi study.

OBJECTIVE: Provision of timely, high-quality care for the initial management of critically ill children in African hospitals remains a challenge. Monitoring the completion of critical actions during resuscitations can inform efforts to reduce variability and improve outcomes. We sought to develop a practice-based tool based on contextually relevant actions identified via a Delphi process. Our goal was to develop a tool that could identify gaps in care, facilitate identification of training and standardised assessment to support quality improvement efforts. DESIGN: Six sentinel conditions were selected based on disease epidemiology and mortality at rural and urban African emergency departments. Potential critical actions were identified through focused literature review. These actions were evaluated within a three-round modified Delphi process. A set of logistical filters was applied to the candidate list to derive a practice-based tool. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Attendees at an international emergency medicine conference comprised an expert panel of 25 participants, with 84% working primarily in African settings. Consensus rounds allowing novel responses were conducted via online and in-person surveys. RESULTS: The expert panel generated 199 actions that apply to six conditions in emergently ill children. Application of appropriateness criteria refined this to 92 candidate actions across the following seven categories: core skills, active seizure, altered mental status, diarrhoeal illness, febrile illness, respiratory distress and polytrauma. From these, we identified 28 actions for inclusion in a practice-based tool contextually relevant to the initial management of critically ill children in Africa. CONCLUSIONS: A group consensus process identified critical actions for severely ill children with select sentinel conditions in emergency paediatric care in an African setting. Absence of these actions during resuscitation might reflect modifiable gaps in quality of care. The resulting practice-based tool is context relevant and can serve as a foundation for training and quality improvement efforts in African hospitals and emergency departments.

Making disaster care count: consensus formulation of measures of effectiveness for natural disaster acute phase medical response.

INTRODUCTION: No standard exists for provision of care following catastrophic natural disasters. Host nations, funders, and overseeing agencies need a method to identify the most effective interventions when allocating finite resources. Measures of effectiveness are real-time indicators that can be used to link early action with downstream impact. HYPOTHESIS: Group consensus methods can be used to develop measures of effectiveness detailing the major functions of post natural disaster acute phase medical response. METHODS: A review of peer-reviewed disaster response publications (2001-2011) identified potential measures describing domestic and international medical response. A steering committee comprised of six persons with publications pertaining to disaster response, and those serving in leadership capacity for a disaster response organization, was assembled. The committee determined which measures identified in the literature review had the best potential to gauge effectiveness during post-disaster acute-phase medical response. Using a modified Delphi technique, a second, larger group (Expert Panel) evaluated these measures and novel measures suggested (or "free-texted") by participants for importance, validity, usability, and feasibility. After three iterations, the highest rated measures were selected. RESULTS: The literature review identified 397 measures. The steering committee approved 116 (29.2%) of these measures for advancement to the Delphi process. In Round 1, 25 (22%) measures attained >75% approval and, accompanied by 77 free-text measures, graduated to Round 2. There, 56 (50%) measures achieved >75% approval. In Round 3, 37 (66%) measures achieved median scores of 4 or higher (on a 5-point ordinal scale). These selected measures describe major aspects of disaster response, including: Evaluation, Treatment, Disposition, Public Health, and Team Logistics. Of participants from the Expert Panel, 24/39 (63%) completed all rounds. Thirty-three percent of these experts represented international agencies; 42% represented US government agencies. CONCLUSION: Experts identified response measures that reflect major functions of an acute medical response. Measures of effectiveness facilitate real-time assessment of performance and can signal where practices should be improved to better aid community preparedness and response. These measures can promote unification of medical assistance, allow for comparison of responses, and bring accountability to post-disaster acute-phase medical care. This is the first consensus-developed reporting tool constructed using objective measures to describe the functions of acute phase disaster medical response. It should be evaluated by agencies providing medical response during the next major natural disaster.