ArticleBMJ paediatrics open2026
High frequency emergency department use and heterogeneity of reasons for attendance by children and young people: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in BMJ paediatrics open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Exploring factors associated with high frequency emergency department use by children and young people: a retrospective cohort study.BMJ paediatrics open · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo quantify patterns of emergency department (ED) use over two consecutive 12-month periods among children aged 15 and under, and to assess heterogeneity of reasons for attendance in high-frequency users.
designPopulation-based retrospective cohort study of routinely collected ED data.
settingEDs in the Yorkshire and Humber region, UK, from 31 March 2014 to 1 April 2017. PATIENTS: Children aged 15 and under with ≥1 ED attendance.
main outcome measuresProportion with ≥7 attendances over 2 years and heterogeneity of diagnostic reasons quantified by the Herfindahl index.
resultsThe cohort included 71 143 individuals. Although only 13.6% were high-frequency attenders in the first year, over half (55.1%) of these made at least one attendance in the second year. A subset (14.1%) remained high-frequency attenders across both years and were more likely to belong to the most deprived deprivation category. Children aged 8-12 were more likely to attend for injury-related issues and showed lower heterogeneity in reasons for attendance, while infants under age 1 had more illness-related attendances and greater heterogeneity.
conclusionsA notable proportion of children and young people frequently attend EDs over a 2-year period. This study introduces a method for quantifying heterogeneity in reasons for attendance, which may support future predictive modelling using electronic health records to identify and support high-frequency ED users.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.