Home › Paediatrics › Prehospital physicians underconfident in paediatrics

Paediatrics

Prehospital physicians underconfident in paediatrics

Challenges faced by prehospital emergency physicians providing emergency care to pediatric patients
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine · Added 31 May 2026

They surveyed emergency physicians and analysed 9,409 protocols to understand pediatric emergency preparedness, and found pediatric cases represent only 6.5% of prehospital physician deployments but physicians reported low confidence in neonatal care, intoxication, and pediatric polytrauma.

Study type

Cross-sectional

Design

Mixed-methods: retrospective protocol analysis plus physician survey

Participants

9,409 prehospital physician protocols (606 paediatric cases) and 437 surveyed physicians

Main finding

Paediatric cases were 6.45% of missions; high confidence for seizures, anaphylaxis and hypoglycaemia but markedly lower confidence for neonatal care, paediatric polytrauma and CPR; >70% supported mandatory simulation-based paediatric training.

Caveat

Self-perceived competence (not measured performance) and physician-staffed system not directly comparable to Australian paramedic practice

Bottom line

Context only

Learning goal

Build my confidence in managing low-frequency paediatric emergencies such as neonatal resuscitation and polytrauma.

More

• Topic: Paediatrics
• Daily scan: 31 May 2026

Related papers on Paediatrics

• Poor field differentiation of infant upper vs lower airway disease

  Prehospital Emergency Care · 27 Jul 2026 · Cohort · Context only

  EMS clinicians documented similar primary impressions and administered many of the same treatments across both upper and lower airway groups, demonstrating minimal differentiation in prehospital management of young children.

• Synchronised ventilation faster ROSC in neonatal piglets

  Resuscitation Plus · 27 Jul 2026 · Simulation · Hypothesis-generating

  In a neonatal piglet model of asystolic cardiac arrest, CCSV resulted in a significantly faster time to ROSC compared to 3:1 C:V.

• Observation cuts CT in paediatric abdominal trauma

  Annals of Emergency Medicine · 27 Jul 2026 · Cohort · Supports current practice

  Observation with deferred CT decisionmaking was associated with less frequent CT use, particularly in patients with intermediate clinician suspicion, without an increase in missed injuries.

• IM beats intranasal midazolam in paediatric seizures

  Prehospital Emergency Care · 6 May 2026 · Systematic review · Supports current practice

  Meta-analysis testing whether intranasal or intramuscular midazolam works better for paediatric seizures without cannula access — intramuscular midazolam was associated with faster seizure termination and less need for rescue therapy, especially in the prehospital setting.