Is this child suitable to be seen in primary care? Poor agreement between caregiver/family perception and definitions of a ‘primary care‐type’ patient

Aims To compare and evaluate the number of paediatric patients classified as ‘suitable for primary care’ using the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) method, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) method, and parental judgement. Methods This was a prospective observational study enrolling parents/carers presenting with their children to two Victorian EDs in Victoria, Australia over a 1‐week period. Trained research assistants were posted within both EDs and surveyed all eligible parents/carers whether they agreed with the statement ‘I think a GP would be able to look after my child's current illness/injury’. Survey responses were linked to clinical outcomes and length of stay. Each presentation was classified as suitable for primary care using the AIHW method, the ACEM method and parental survey. Agreement between definitions was assessed using Cohen's kappa statistic. Results During the study (June 2016), 1069 patients presented to the two EDs; 677 patients were able to be classified under all three definitions (AIHW: 1069, ACEM: 991, survey: 677 patients). Only 80/677 (12%) patients met all three criteria. Agreement was slight between the parent survey and the ACEM method (K = 0.14, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.06–0.21), and the parent survey and the AIHW method (K = 0.12, 95% CI 0.05–0.19). There was moderate agreement between the ACEM and AIHW methods (K = 0.45, 95% CI 0.39–0.51). Conclusions There is very poor agreement on what defines a ‘primary care‐type’ paediatric patient between the definitions used by government, professional bodies and caregivers.