Hospital characteristics
| Erasmus MC- Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands | Maasstad Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands | St. Mary’s Hospital Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK | Hospital Prof. Dr. Fernando Fonseca, Lisbon, Portugal | General Hospital, Vienna, Austria | |
| Hospital characteristics | University hospital | Teaching hospital | University hospital | Community hospital | University hospital |
| 60 paediatric beds | 59 paediatric beds | 46 paediatric beds | 91 paediatric beds | 134 paediatric beds | |
| ED characteristics* | 6500 children/year | 9500 children/year | 27 000 children/year | 60 000 children/year | 22 000 children/year |
| Urban | Urban | Urban | Mixed urban/rural | Urban | |
| Mixed high and low socioeconomic status | Generally low socioeconomic status | Mixed high and low socioeconomic status | Generally low socioeconomic status | Mixed high and low socioeconomic status | |
| No of patients included | |||||
| 18 590 | 10 583 | 15 556 | 53 175 | 21 300 | |
| Inclusion period | 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2014 | 1 May 2014 to 31 October 2015 | 1 July 2014 to 28 February 2015 | 1 March 2014 to 28 February 2015 | 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014 |
| No of patients during, n (%) | |||||
| Office hours | 8915 (48.0) | 4229 (40.0) | 5635 (36.2) | 22 470 (42.3) | 9168 (43.0) |
| Out-of-office hours | 9675 (52.0) | 6354 (60.0) | 9921 (63.8) | 30 705 (57.7) | 12 132 (57.0) |
| Median age, years (IQR) | 4.3 (1.4–9.8) | 5.7 (1.9–11.6) | 3.9 (1.5–8.8) | 4.7 (1.9–9.5) | 3.9 (1.6–8.3) |
| MTS, n (%) | |||||
| High urgent | 2427 (13.1) | 1515 (14.3) | 1605 (10.3) | 6222 (11.7) | 1084 (5.0) |
| Urgent | 8744 (47.0) | 5110 (48.3) | 3961 (25.5) | 10 951 (20.6) | 3851 (18.1) |
| Low urgent | 6849 (36.8) | 3857 (36.4) | 9990 (64.2) | 36 002 (67.7) | 15 314 (71.9) |
| Missing | 570 (3.1) | 101 (0.1) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 1051 (4.9) |
| Presenting problem, n (%) | |||||
| Medical | 12.206 (65.7) | 5163 (48.8) | 11.520 (74.1) | 43 814 (82.4) | 19 174 (90.0) |
| Trauma | 5814 (31.3) | 5321 (50.3) | 4036 (25.9) | 9361 (17.6) | 1034 (4.9) |
| Missing | 570 (3.1) | 99 (0.9) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 1092 (5.1) |
*All EDs are paediatric only, except for the Maasstad Hospital, which is mixed adult–paediatric. The Erasmus MC-Sophia Children’s hospital has a mixed adult–paediatric ED since October 2014 (3 months in total during the inclusion period).
ED, emergency department.