Analysis of Parental Estimates of Children's Weights in the ED☆,☆☆,★
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Rapid estimation of pediatric weights is a skill required of all emergency health care providers. Methods include the Broselow tape,1 age-based formulas,2 and—when available and practical—an actual measured weight. In this study we assessed the accuracy of the parents in providing a weight. If found reliable, such weights could be used by prehospital and hospital providers to help estimate the degree of dehydration, assess failure to thrive, and calculate medication dosing.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We assembled a convenience sample of children, newborn to 5 years, who presented to our ED with their parents between February 1 and March 3, 1996. Children who arrived by ambulance were not included. On the child's arrival at the triage desk, vital signs were recorded and the parent was asked for consent to the child's enrollment in the study. If the parent agreed, he or she was asked to estimate the child's weight. The child was then weighed on a Detecto electronic scale, and the weight was
RESULTS
We enrolled 117 patients in the study. Their mean age was 26.7 months (range, 5 days to 60 months). An analysis of agreement was used to compare measured weights with parental estimates and formula-derived weights. We converted differences to percentages of the actual weights. The mean±SD difference between the estimated weight and the measured weight was 6.8%±9.8%. The mean±SD difference between the formula-derived weight and the measured weight was 13.6%±17.5%. Figure 1 shows the percent
DISCUSSION
In this study 80% of parents were accurate to within 10% of the measured weight in estimating their children's weight. The parental estimate performed much better than the age-derived formula. In a previous study, values calculated with the Broselow tape were found to be within 15% of the actual weight in 79% of cases.1 Our findings indicate that parents are another accurate and reliable source of information for weight estimation. This information is especially useful in situations such as
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Cited by (45)
Weight Estimation Methods in Children: A Systematic Review
2016, Annals of Emergency MedicineCitation Excerpt :We screened the abstracts of 131 studies and excluded 16 after screening and an additional 35 after full-text review (Figure). We thus included 80 studies on the topic of estimating weight in pediatric patients that met our inclusion criteria in this review.2,4,6-83 Studies were published from 1986 to 2016 and were conducted in 23 countries, although more were from the United States.
Finger counting: An alternative method for estimating pediatric weights
2014, American Journal of Emergency MedicineCitation Excerpt :The Broselow tape method of estimating pediatric weight is commonly used in the United States [1]. Using a parent's estimate of the child's weight has also been described [2-4]. Both methods have outperformed age-based formulas [5].
Evaluation of the Mercy TAPE: Performance against the standard for pediatric weight estimation
2013, Annals of Emergency MedicineAccuracy of weight estimates in pediatric patients by prehospital Emergency Medical Services personnel
2013, American Journal of Emergency MedicineCitation Excerpt :We were also unable to identify the source of the weight estimate, any resources used, or the method in which the estimate was made. Several studies have shown that parental estimates are more accurate than other methods of assessing children’s weights [13-15]. We were unable to directly ascertain the presence of a parent and whether they provided the weight estimate; however, encounters at home, a surrogate measure of parental presence, was not associated with the accuracy of weight estimates.
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From the University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT.
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Reprint no.47/1/82889
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Address for reprints: Stephen Leffler, MD, FAHC Emergency Department, Colchester Avenue, Burlington, VT 05401