Trial reportBMC primary care2022
How parents express their worry in calls to a medical helpline: a mixed methods study.
Trial report in BMC primary care, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02979457 (Early Patient Involvement in Out-of-hours Health Care), which is not on this map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Early Patient Involvement in Out-of-hours Health Care
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Video Tutorials to Empower Caregivers of Ill Children and Reduce Health Care Utilization: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2023Trial
- Video triage in calls concerning children with fever at an out-of-hours medical helpline: a prospective quality improvement study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2023Trial
- Parents' Perspectives on XR Distraction During Pediatric Needle Procedures.Paediatric & neonatal pain · 2026Article
- Parental Ability to Identify Severe Illnesses in Their Children.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Parents' Motivations for Calling an Out-of-Hours Helpline: Qualitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTelephone triage is used globally in out-of-hours primary care, to prioritize who needs urgent assessment. Even though children rarely are severely ill, calls about sick children are among the most prevalent, mainly due to parental worry. Pediatric calls are considered challenging, as the call-handler must rely on parents' second-hand information. We aimed to investigate if parents' worry can be used as a predictor of severe illness, and if the content of the calls varies between different grades of worry.
methodsIn a convergent mixed methods study design we asked patients to rate their degree-of-worry before talking to a call-handler. We used quantitative data of degree-of-worry, triage- and patient outcome in pediatric calls (n = 2857), and the qualitative content from 54 calls with subsequent hospitalization ≥24 h.
resultsHigh degree-of-worry was associated with hospitalization ≥24 h (OR 3.33, 95% CI 1.53-7.21). Qualitative findings both confirmed and expanded knowledge of degree-of-worry. Worry was the predominant cause for contact overall, and was mainly triggered by loss-of-control. In calls with high degree-of-worry, the prevalence of loss-of-control was especially high, and the parents had additionally often contacted healthcare services recently. Parents with a foreign accent often rated their worry as high, and these callers were often ignored or interrupted. Calls with low degree-of-worry seemed to occur early during the disease.
conclusionHigh degree of parental worry was associated with severe illness. At the end of calls, call-handlers should ensure that the parent has regained control of the situation to reach increased reassurance and to prevent renewed unnecessary contact. Safety-netting is crucial, as many parents made contact early during the illness and deterioration may develop later. The scoring of parental degree-of-worry may be used as an indicator of potentially severe illness and can easily be implemented at out-of-hours call-centers globally.
trial registrationOriginal study registered at clinicaltrials.gov ( NCT02979457 ).
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