Characteristics of children requiring admission to neonatal care and paediatric intensive care before the age of 2 years in England and Wales: a data linkage study
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objective: To quantify the characteristics of children admitted to neonatal units (NNUs) and paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) before the age of 2 years.
Design: A data linkage study of routinely collected data.
Setting: National Health Service NNUs and PICUs in England and Wales
Patients: Children born from 2013 to 2018.
Interventions: None.
Main outcome measure: Admission to PICU before the age of 2 years.
Results: A total of 384 747 babies were admitted to an NNU and 4.8% (n=18 343) were also admitted to PICU before the age of 2 years. Approximately half of all children admitted to PICU under the age of 2 years born in the same time window (n=18 343/37 549) had previously been cared for in an NNU.
The main reasons for first admission to PICU were cardiac (n=7138) and respiratory conditions (n=5386). Cardiac admissions were primarily from children born at term (n=5146), while respiratory admissions were primarily from children born preterm (<37 weeks’ gestational age, n=3550). A third of children admitted to PICU had more than one admission.
Conclusions: Healthcare professionals caring for babies and children in NNU and PICU see some of the same children in the first 2 years of life. While some children are following established care pathways (eg, staged cardiac surgery), the small proportion of children needing NNU care subsequently requiring PICU care account for a large proportion of the total PICU population. These differences may affect perceptions of risk for this group of children between NNU and PICU teams.
Design: A data linkage study of routinely collected data.
Setting: National Health Service NNUs and PICUs in England and Wales
Patients: Children born from 2013 to 2018.
Interventions: None.
Main outcome measure: Admission to PICU before the age of 2 years.
Results: A total of 384 747 babies were admitted to an NNU and 4.8% (n=18 343) were also admitted to PICU before the age of 2 years. Approximately half of all children admitted to PICU under the age of 2 years born in the same time window (n=18 343/37 549) had previously been cared for in an NNU.
The main reasons for first admission to PICU were cardiac (n=7138) and respiratory conditions (n=5386). Cardiac admissions were primarily from children born at term (n=5146), while respiratory admissions were primarily from children born preterm (<37 weeks’ gestational age, n=3550). A third of children admitted to PICU had more than one admission.
Conclusions: Healthcare professionals caring for babies and children in NNU and PICU see some of the same children in the first 2 years of life. While some children are following established care pathways (eg, staged cardiac surgery), the small proportion of children needing NNU care subsequently requiring PICU care account for a large proportion of the total PICU population. These differences may affect perceptions of risk for this group of children between NNU and PICU teams.
Date Issued
2024-05
Date Acceptance
2024-01-13
Citation
Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2024, 109 (5), pp.387-394
ISSN
0003-9888
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Start Page
387
End Page
394
Journal / Book Title
Archives of Disease in Childhood
Volume
109
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://adc.bmj.com/content/109/5/387
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2024-02-12