47 Clinical Approach to Febrile Urinary Tract Infections in Young Children Presenting to the Paediatric Emergency Department: A Retrospective Study of National Guideline Compliance
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest threats to global health. Antibiotic overuse drives antimicrobial resistance. Suspected urinary tract infection (UTI) is a key area of over-prescribing in many clinical settings but has not been investigated in the paediatric emergency department (ED). Objectives Here, we explore compliance with national UTI management guidelines in a paediatric emergency department setting and characterize patient and provider factors associated with guideline non-compliance. Design/Methods We performed retrospective chart review of patients ages 60 days to 36 months, discharged with a diagnosis of UTI from a single, urban, tertiary care paediatric emergency department (PED) with a diagnosis of UTI. Random visits were chosen using a computer algorithm. Primary outcomes were: 1) proportion of patients receiving guideline-compliant investigation and treatment, and 2) the proportion of children whose antibiotic prescriptions were appropriately adjusted upon return of urine culture and antibiotic susceptibilities (C&S). The guideline was the Canadian Paediatric Society statement on management of UTI, as well as the BC Children’s Hospital institutional UTI management guideline. Descriptive statistics and odds ratios between associations were calculated. Results We reviewed 402 charts. The proportion of infants receiving guideline-compliant testing and treatment was 25.9% (95% CI: 21.8-30.4%). Of those who were prescribed antibiotics, 79.6% (95% CI: 74.7-83.8%) received a first-line recommended agent and 58.9% (95% CI: 53.8-63.8%) received fully compliant therapy with respect to agent, dose, duration, and frequency. 19.4% (15.4-24.2%) of patients who were prescribed empiric cephalexin received an inappropriately high total daily dose. The proportion of patients receiving age-appropriate testing method was 52.2% (95% CI: 47.4-57.1). Febrile children were more likely to receive age-appropriate urine sample collection by catheterized sample (OR: 2.77 95% CI: 1.81-4.25) compared with afebrile children. Ultimately, 50.7% (95% CI: 40.4-49.6%) of patients discharged with a diagnosis of UTI and prescription for antibiotic met diagnostic criteria for UTI based on urinalysis and culture results. Of patients whose C&S mandated a change in therapy, 60.8% (95% CI: 55.8-65.7%) had their agent changed or discontinued. Conclusion Paediatric emergency medicine physicians frequently order inappropriate investigation and empiric treatment of UTI in young children. Discontinuation of empiric antibiotics in culture-negative children may be an impactful stewardship intervention in the PED.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".