PhD defence C.D. (Chantal) Tan

Brief summary of the doctoral thesis:

Children form a substantial part of patients attending the Emergency Department (ED). These children present with a broad spectrum of conditions and symptoms. Fever is one of the most common presenting symptoms, accounting for 20% of all paediatric visits to the ED. There are multiple challenges along the journey of these febrile children attending the ED, from parents’ decision to seek medical help to diagnostics and management at the ED. Therefore, we focused on several aspects of the pathway of febrile children attending the ED. 

In this thesis, we aimed to study areas to improve processes and clinical care at the ED for febrile children in Europe. We used the MOFICHE study (Management and outcome of fever in children in Europe) with observational data on 38,480 febrile children attending twelve EDs in eight European countries. This international multicenter study enabled us to study patient characteristics and management performed, and describe practice variation in febrile children across Europe. Furthermore, we performed a qualitative COVID-19 study on parents’ perspectives with a sick or injured child during the COVID-19 pandemic in five European countries. Parental experiences were used to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on parental help-seeking behaviour and care for a sick or injured child during the COVID-19 pandemic.