Medical problems presenting to paediatric emergency departments: 10 years on

ObjectiveTo describe the common medical presenting problems of children attending a paediatric emergency department (ED) compared with 10 years previously.DesignA retrospective review of electronic patient record and comparison with previous cohort.SettingA UK university hospital ED.PatientsA cohort of children and young people aged 0–15 years who attended the ED between 7 February 2007 and 6 February 2008 (n=39 394) compared with a historical cohort from 10 years earlier.Main outcome measures and resultsInformation on presenting problem, demographic data and source of referral were collected. Presenting problems were ranked and comparisons made with previous data using the difference between proportions analysis and the significance test for a difference in two proportions. A total of 39 394 children (57% boys) were seen with 14 724 medical attendances compared with 10 369 attendances from the 1997 cohort, an increase of 42%. Most (85%) ED attendances can be accounted for by the 10 most common presenting problems, including breathing difficulty (2494, 20.1%), febrile illness (1752, 14.1%), diarrhoea with or without vomiting (1731, 14.0%), rash (1066, 8.6%) and cough (835, 6.7%). Similar proportions are described to a decade earlier; however, there were fewer patients attending with breathing difficulty (−10.9%, p