Australasian bronchiolitis guideline.

Aim: Bronchiolitis is the most common lower respiratory tract disorder in infants aged less than 12 months, and research has demonstrated that there is substantial variation in practice patterns despite treatment being well defined. In order to align and improve the consistency of the management of bronchiolitis, an evidence-based guideline was developed for the Australasian population.

Methods: The guideline development committee included representation from emergency and paediatric specialty medical and nursing personnel in addition to geographical representation across Australia and New Zealand - rural, remote and metropolitan.

A multicentre randomised controlled trial of levetiracetam versus phenytoin for convulsive status epilepticus in children (protocol): Convulsive Status Epilepticus Paediatric Trial (ConSEPT) - a PREDICT study.

Background: Convulsive status epilepticus (CSE) is the most common life-threatening childhood neurological emergency. Despite this, there is a lack of high quality evidence supporting medication use after first line benzodiazepines, with current treatment protocols based solely on non-experimental evidence and expert opinion. The current standard of care, phenytoin, is only 60% effective, and associated with considerable adverse effects.

Computed tomography for head injuries in children: Change in Australian usage rates over time.

Objective: Paediatric head injury is a common presentation to the ED. North American studies demonstrate increasing use of computed tomography (CT) brain scan (CTB) to investigate head injury. No such data exists for Australian EDs.

Bell's palsy in children: Current treatment patterns in Australia and New Zealand. A PREDICT study.

Aim: The aetiology and clinical course of Bell's palsy may be different in paediatric and adult patients. There is no randomised placebo controlled trial (RCT) to show effectiveness of prednisolone for Bell's palsy in children. The aim of the study was to assess current practice in paediatric Bell's palsy in Australia and New Zealand Emergency Departments (ED) and determine the feasibility of conducting a multicentre RCT within the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT).

Early high flow nasal cannula therapy in bronchiolitis, a prospective randomised control trial (protocol): A Paediatric Acute Respiratory Intervention Study (PARIS).

Background: Bronchiolitis imposes the largest health care burden on non-elective paediatric hospital admissions worldwide, with up to 15 % of cases requiring admission to intensive care. A number of previous studies have failed to show benefit of pharmaceutical treatment in respect to length of stay, reduction in PICU admission rates or intubation frequency. The early use of non-invasive respiratory support devices in less intensive scenarios to facilitate earlier respiratory support may have an impact on outcome by avoiding progression of the disease process.

Effect of a multifaceted intervention on documentation of vital signs and staff communication regarding deteriorating paediatric patients.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of newly designed Paediatric Early Warning Scores and an accompanying education package, COMPASS, on the frequency of documentation of vital signs and communication between health professionals and associated medical review in deteriorating paediatric patients.

Methods: One thousand fifty-nine patients in the pre-intervention phase and 899 in the post-intervention phase were studied. The daily frequency of documentation of vital sign measurement, incidence of health professional communication and related medical reviews following clinical deterioration of a random subgroup of 262 pre-intervention and 221 post-intervention patients were studied in detail.