ECG in children - an amuse bouche (and what to do with one)

Food etiquette is a minefield.  I remember the first time I was presented with an amuse bouche.  I had no idea why it was, let alone what I was supposed to do with it.  One minute later, with the tasty morsel in my belly, I realised I had really over-thought the whole thing.  Also, I was still hungry.  Non-acute paediatric ECG is a lot like that.

Some tests are so simple, usually because they are quantitative.  You do a blood sugar and you get... a blood sugar.  Some tests are much more qualitative, such as Chest X-ray.  Show a chest X-ray to half a dozen radiologists and you may be surprised by the range of interpretations.  ECG in children definitely falls into the second category in that it is a test which requires interpretation.  The interpretation of an ECG is fairly standard, but I've never yet met a standard child or a standard clinician.

There are many reasons why an ECG might be done for a child.  I am not talking about during an acute presentation such as a severe tachycardia or other signs suspicious of a cardiac cause for a child to be unwell.  I am talking about ECG in a child who is well, but had a symptom that warranted an ECG.  If you want to know about the kind of critical care ECG interpretation best done wearing a cape and with underpants on the outside of your trousers, you might like to listen to the PEMplaybook.

If your cape is in the cupboard and underwear is wherever you normally keep it, then ECG is a more fickle friend.  When an ECG is normal normal then that's great but it's not the end of the story.  Often it appears abnormal, because paediatric ECGs look different much of the time.  In a BMJ article about ECGs, the authors write, "Chest pain in children is rarely cardiac in origin and is often associated with tenderness in the chest wall. Electrocardiography is not usually helpful in making a diagnosis, although a normal trace can be very reassuring to the family." (1) That is all very well if with a 12 lead ECG you can tell them that all is normal.

So what is the problem with paediatric ECG?  Well actually there are two problems.  The first is the issue of things that look abnormal and are not.

Much of the differences in paediatric ECG are to do with the initial right sided dominance.  The other thing that can be a factor is physics.  The ECG may show up as LVH, RVH, atrial enlargement etc, but this is often because there is just very little in the way of chest wall between the sticker and the myocardium.  You don't get this problem in children with a more substantial chest wall.  Simply put, in a small or skinny child, large waves are usually normal. If something appears big, look at the child and check the axis.  A skinny child and a normal axis means that the "LVH by voltage criteria" is probably a lie.

Knowing these things helps us to be able to say more often, "This is a normal ECG."

Then there is the opposite problem: a 12 lead ECG done when asymptomatic does not rule out significant pathology.  Take this case study as an example:

A 12 year old girl presents having had a collapse while playing tennis.  She had no palpitations or chest pain and simply recalls feeling faint just before she collapsed.  The adult playing tennis with her describes a sudden collapse, while she was walking t pick up a ball.  When they ran over, the young person was unresponsive for only a few seconds before slowly coming around.

Clinical examination is normal.  The only other history of note is in the family history - a sudden unexpected death in infancy of a 9 month old sibling.  

Would you be happy to rule out a cardiac arrhythmia based on a resting, asymptomatic 12 lead ECG?  With that history, I wouldn't recommend it.

So, if an ECG in a child who is currently asymptomatic has a lot of false positives and false negatives, what is it useful for?  The answer to that is that it should mainly be used to answer specific questions.  For example, in the case above, I want to know the corrected QT interval.  A 12 lead ECG will tell me that.  In fact, resting asymptomatic ECGs are mostly useful for checking rhythm and intervals.

Morphology and high voltage account for most of the false positives and normal rhythm can be a false negative.  Both these things are fine, because a 12 lead ECG is simply an amuse bouche.  If you aren't hungry (no red flags), an amuse bouche is simply a tasty mouthful which won't fill you up.  It is debatable whether it is even needed in a child who has had a typical faint with no red flags.

If you are hungry (red flags in the history or examination), don't rely on an amuse bouche, which should just be there to keep you happy until the real food arrives.  What you have for your main course depends on where you work.  Perhaps you have direct access to 24 hr ECG and cardiac echo. Me? I phone a friend to do these things for me.

Edward Snelson
The Gourmand of Child Health
@sailordoctor

Disclaimer - I may not have had all of the ECGs the right way up.  That could explain some of the abnormal morphology.

References

1. Steve Goodacre, Karen McLeod, Paediatric electrocardiography, BMJ 2002;324:1382
2. PEM playbook EKG killers

A genuinely useful test - Blood sugar in acutely unwell children

When your patient is a child, the decision to do investigations is a complex one.  On one hand, it is often the case that at the end of history taking and examination there is some uncertainty which tempts the clinician to gather more information in the form of tests.  Parental anxiety might seem to be best managed through investigations either to demonstrate normality or to show that concerns have been taken seriously.

The reality is that these reasons for doing tests are all dubious and can achieve the opposite to the desired result.  There are few paediatric medical problems for which a test is more valid than clinical assessment.  For example, upper respiratory tract infections - If the symptoms are all well controlled by simple analgesia, what useful information could tests add?

Worse still, many tests are potentially misleading or might cause anxiety.  I like a full blood count as much as the next medic but goodness me don't they have a lot of information in them?  Does it mean something when the lymphocyte count is just below the reference range if the total white cell count is normal?  Sometimes the result can be alarming.  "Toxic lymphocytes" are a good example of something that you don't want to get on the lab report, especially when the child is climbing up the shelves in your consulting room while you try to work out how to answer the question, "Was the blood test result normal?"

But it's not all me, me, me.  The truly difficult part of all of this is that we should not use tests to reassure.  No matter how much another person wants a child to have a test for their own reassurance, we should only be doing tests which are in the best interest of the child.  Although a tough rule to live by, it is important to remember that the child is the patient, not the parent. 

The good news is that tests rarely tell you something of great value once a child has been clinically assessed.  Tests are most useful when they give you a number which has a clear clinical significance and where you could not have made a diagnosis without that test.  This criteria applies very nicely to testing blood sugar for an acutely unwell child, in certain curcumstances.  

Here are two cases where a simple skin prick glucose test has made all the difference:

Case 1

A three year old boy has been vomiting and febrile for 24 hours.  Clinically they are not dehydrated (they have wet mucous membranes, normal skin turgor, their eyes are not sunken and they are passing urine reasonably well) and they are neither septic nor meningitic.  In fact what is odd about them is that they seem subdued and grumpy despite having a normal heart rate and normal temperature.

Blood sugar is tested and found to be significantly low.

Why do unwell children get low blood sugar?  This happens for one of two reasons.  The most common reason is that the child has exhausted their available supplies of glucose.  The child's body has a limited reserve and if consumption exceeds supply then the child will eventually run out of glycogen, the most readily available way of mobilising energy in times of need.

The second possible reason is that the child has a metabolic problem.  Some children have a disorder in their metabolism which is normally masked by the almost constant supply of carbohydrate that they receive.  When this supply is interrupted, it unmasks the fact that one of the chemical pathways (needed in times of crisis) is faulty.  No plan B, no blood sugar.

How do children with low blood sugar look?  The brain is a complicated thing but it runs on two main things: oxygen and sugar (or backup substances but let's keep this simple).  If a child has a low blood glucose then the first signs are usually neurological.  Most commonly the child is not fully alert and is often unhappy.  I believe the term is hangry.  They will be less active but they may also be combative.

How should low blood sugar be treated?  The first thing to mention here is a pitfall.  Do not use glucagon to treat hypoglycaemia in children when the reason for their low blood sugar is that they have run out of reserves.  It simply won't work.

If the child is able to swallow safely, they can be given a sugary drink.  If not then what happens next depends on where you work.  If you are outside of a hospital setting, then a glucose gel rubbed into the oral mucosa will be a good plan.  In hospital, most places will give an intravenous bolus of dextrose 10%.  (ALSG recommends 2ml/kg) When the cannula goes in, there are usually some blood tests that need to be taken, depending on local guidelines.

The response to initial treatment should be assessed and further intervention given as needed.  If there is a good response, it is important to realise that this is not 'job done'.  To become hypoglycaemic, the child had to have exhausted their reserves, so a single bolus will have a very temporary effect.  It is essential to continue the carbohydrate supply, often in the form of maintenance intravenous fluids.


Case 2

A 5 year old girl presents with abdominal pain and vomiting.  They started being non-specifically unwell two days ago.  Yesterday they started having abdominal pains and overnight they started to vomit.  The child is drinking well and passing urine.

The child has no significant past medical history.  On examination the child is subdued and miserable.  The abdomen is soft.  The child is tachycardic but has a normal temperature.

When a blood glucose is checked, it reads three times the upper limit of normal.

Why do children get high blood sugar?  Although any significant illness can cause a moderately raised blood sugar level, hyperglycaemia of this magnitude always means diabetic ketoacidosis. (Well, that's not strictly true.  Occasionally it means that there is sugary residue from a drink or snack on the finger that was tested.  That's why you need to clean the finger first.)  Of course, it is possible (and preferable) to make the new diagnosis of type 1 diabetes before it gets as far as DKA.  If the blood sugar is high, type 1 diabetes should be the presumed diagnosis.

How does diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) present?  DKA is a difficult diagnosis for all sorts of reasons:

• Symptoms are somewhat non-specific.  Abdominal pain and vomiting are good examples.
• DKA is rare and gastroenteritis is common
• Clinicians tend to check that a child is drinking and passing urine enough, but may not ask if oral intake and urine output is excessive
• The onset of symptoms can be surprisingly gradual.
• While less common, type 1 diabetes can occur at very young ages.  Unsurprisingly, it is not the first diagnosis that people think of when seeing an unwell young child.

Most commonly, the illness is initially mistaken for a viral URTI or gastroenteritis.  Polyuria and polydipsia are unusual symptoms in a child with a viral illness who is significantly unwell and should be major clues.  Abnormal breathing is a feature of the acidosis and should also prompt the clinician to think of DKA.  However there is one feature that rather tidily applies to both high and low blood sugar: the child will be subdued and lethargic.

How should DKA or newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes be treated?

This is fairly specialised stuff so these children will all need to be referred.  The acute management of DKA is rather complicated and requires careful fluid management to reduce the risk of developing cerebral oedema.  According to the NICE guidelines (1), fluids should be the priority for the first 1-2 hrs after which insulin can be started for DKA.

As tests go, blood glucose is much more useful that many, and the result and meaning are usually clear.  Blood glucose is a test to go for in children who have atypical symptoms or are significantly subdued.  High or low, an abnormal result is a game changer and early recognition of the problem will make a huge difference.

Edward Snelson
Tricorder trainer
@sailordoctor

Disclaimer: While it would be wrong to do an unnecessary test on a child, it is perfectly acceptable to Feng Shui them. They then need careful monitoring to see the effect of the intervention.

Reference

1. NICE guideline [NG18], Diabetes (type 1 and type 2) in children and young people: diagnosis and management

Investigations in Bronchiolitis - Help a Brother Out

One of the things that a crisis should do is to bring people together.  As the UK's National Health Service experiences a winter that is bringing  it to it's knees, we should be more aware than ever that Primary and Secondary Care need to work together as a team so that we all come out the other end of this intact.  There are those in each camp that are so entrenched in the us-and-them mentality that this idea of teamwork is against  their very being.  If you think that General (family) Practitioners (GPs) are lazy idiots or you think that hospital doctors are arrogant and lack communication skills, I'm not sure that I've got anything to help you.  (Perhaps a hug?)  If you are willing to believe that we are all part of a team and that any divisions are both understandable and resolvable, read on.

The issues that cause division are (in my experience) usually due to misunderstanding and a lack of insight into the part that we play in creating these disparities.  The irritations that I cause my colleagues, whether in Primary or Secondary Care, tend to be completely unintentional.  Sometimes it can be what seems like the smallest thing and I have no idea of the impact it has on someone else.  That's why it's so important to talk to each other.

Let me describe an example: the seemingly simple act of requesting a chest X-ray for a baby with bronchiolitis.

Bronchiolitis is usually a set piece.  An infant, usually under 12 months old, gets inflammation in their airways during a viral respiratory tract infection.  This leads to a three to five day period of increasing symptoms that usually consist of cough, wheeze, difficulty feeding and increased work of breathing.  In practical terms, that might play out like this:

Monday - A three month old is snotty and coughing but well and feeding nicely.  Breathing will probably be normal at this stage.

Tuesday - The parents have now noticed some noisy breathing and that feeding isn't as good as it normally is.  like many people in these circumstances, they seek a medical opinion and so go to their GP.  They are seen and the diagnosis of bronchiolitis is explained.  The clinician advises frequent small feeds and gives safety-netting advice for what to look out for in case this child becomes one of the very small minority who develop breathing or feeding difficulties that require support as an inpatient.  In keeping with NICE guidelines (1), they do no tests and give no treatments.

Wednesday - The parents have noticed a slight worsening of the feeding and are unsure about whether this is bad enough to need something to be done.  They hold off doing anything during the day but when their baby refuses an evening feed they take their precious bundle to the local emergency department.  There the child gets a thorough assessment.  Clinically the infant is well hydrated and although they have wheeze and mild recession they are looking happy and have oxygen saturations of 95% in air. Despite the earlier feed refusal, they now take 100 mls of milk. The assessing clinician hears a few crackles in the chest and decides to do a chest X-ray, just to be sure that today's worsening symptoms are not due to a bacterial pneumonia developing.

When is it necessary to do a chest X-ray for babies with bronchiolitis?

There are many possible complications of bronchiolitis.  In theory, these should be apparent on a chest X-ray.  There are also conditions that mimic simple bronchiolitis, most notably congestive cardiac failure.  So, a chest X-ray seems a sensible thing to do to add value to the assessment.  Except that it doesn't, for two main reasons.

These are the reasons why a chest X-ray doesn't add value to the assessment of a typical presentation of bronchiolitis:

• There is always something to be seen on the X-ray.  If you are looking for normal, you are unlikely to find it.
• If the infant has bronchiolitis, that is enough explanation for their clinical condition.  If they had a complication such as lobar pneumonia as well, you would't be doing the chest X-ray to see if there is a problem, you'd be doing it because the child is seriously unwell.

Coming back to our little one with bronchiolitis, let's assume that the chest X-ray shows what it always shows in bronchiolitis - something of uncertain significance.  There will be a little fluffy shadow somewhere due to the mucous plugging and atelectasis that is part and parcel of bronchiolitis.  Often, there is something to be seen at the right heart border (or as a wise radiologist once redefined for me: "the area of radiological romance") which may or may not be something.  Once seen, it is very difficult not to feel the need to treat for possible bacterial infection.  This brings me on to the next few reasons for not doing a chest X-ray.

Doing a chest X-ray in bronchiolitis is associated with increased antibiotic prescribing rates.  Bacterial superinfection in bronchiolitis is rare and is usually clinically apparent.  Bronchiolitis is reason enough to have respiratory symptoms.  If a baby also develops pneumonia, they are usually quite unwell and have a marked degree of distress.  So, following that logic, for our baby the antibiotics are simply unnecessary, in which case they may do harm.  Since one of the problems that comes with bronchiolitis is feeding and hydration, why give these babies a gastric irritant?

Finally, there is a second victim here: the clinician who saw the baby on Tuesday.  Despite sterling work by the GP, the parents are likely to believe in retrospect that they were given a poor service.
All the evidence is there:

• The person that they saw in the community did nothing and their child became worse.  
• The experts in the hospital did a test which showed that their baby needed antibiotics.
• Antibiotics were given and eventually the bronchiolitis got better. 

Why didn't the GP do something when we went the first time?

Of course both clinicians in this story were trying to do their best for the patient.  Neither of them had anything on their mind other than trying to ensure the best outcome for the child. There was no disrespect intended and no one wanted to cause anyone any problems.  We are all just trying to get through the day and to keep our patients safe and well.

Thankfully, it turns out that in bronchiolitis, keeping your patient safe and well is probably best done without the use of chest x-ray and antibiotics.  So, we in Secondary Care can help our colleagues in Primary Care out by making the assessment that needs to be made: in or out (of hospital)?  That decision is made on clinical grounds and if they need to be admitted, a chest X-ray may be useful.  Maybe.

Edward Snelson
Vice President of the Guild of Doing as Much Nothing as Possible
@sailordoctor

Disclaimer:  I did a chest X-ray for bronchiolitis once.  There was a white patch at the right heart border but it turned out to be tippex on the screen.

Reference

1. Bronchiolitis in children: diagnosis and management, NICE guideline [NG9] Published date: June 2015

The Trouble with Training (Easter egg - when to do a Chest X-ray in children in the ED or General Practice)

I remember well how difficult it is to stay up to date across the thousands of clinical scenarios that face the General Practitioner.  When I was faced by something not in the top 100 weekly problems, I usually had to think back to my training.  That works well as long as what I recalled was accurate, and was best practice at the time and remained so.  What are the chances of all three being true even five years post-training?

Accurate recall (keep taking that thiamine) aside, the first issue is whether one's training involved the demonstration of standard care.  I was recently pulled into a twitter conversation about whether children with pneumonia required a chest X-ray (CXR).  The person facilitating the discussion was one of the local GP trainers who had himself been asked by one of the GP trainees here in Sheffield.  The trainee felt that they were getting mixed messages and wanted to know the right answer.  Of course a complete answer doesn't fit in a tweet.  Also, tweets are transient unless they are the kind that get you fired.  So a GPpaedsTips post seems to me to be the best place for a proper answer.  Since the question was about acute paediatrics, I can legitimately put a foot outside of the Primary Care remit of this site, but it seems the ideal opportunity to also address the question of when a CXR might be indicated for a child in a General Practice setting.

Continuing with the theme of see one do one, lets start with children with pneumonia in a secondary care setting in the UK.  The British Thoracic Society guidelines for community acquired pneumonia in children are, in my opinion, very good.  Their recommendation that "Chest radiography should not be considered a routine investigation in children thought to have community acquired pneumonia" is based on the old principle of 'if it doesn't change your management don't do it.'  Putting that into practice requires a little step back and for us to ask the question, 'what is a CXR for?'  I used to think it was needed to diagnose pneumonia.  That is a fallacy, since X-ray changes will have a time lag and a CXR can be a false negative.  So, is it to show the severity, or what kind of pneumonia it is?  No, the severity is a clinical assessment and the type of chest infection is determined by a combination of the clues in the assessment and the response to treatment.  According to the BTS guidelines, CXR in the ED or paediatric assessment unit should mainly be used for the cases which are a little bit different from the routine LRTI.  This might be repeated LRTI, a child who is severely unwell or a number of other reasons.  That doesn't mean find a reason.  It means find a good reason.  In particular, if you think the child is well enough to treat as an outpatient, BTS recommends never doing a CXR.  Never is a strong word but it's a good place to start and puts the GP CXR question in context.

Adults, with their risk of lung cancer, are different.  In children, signs and symptoms are usually all you need when making decisions about treatment or referral when it comes to children's respiratory problems.  In my opinion, doing a CXR for a child in primary care should be for a situation where the X-ray could give information that allows treatment to be given or a referral to be avoided.  I can't think of any situations where the CXR would do that but a history and examination would not.

I understand that one reason that CXRs are done for children in Primary Care is to reassure parents or clinicians.  I would be very wary of that plan.  CXRs often have findings on them, especially when a child has a viral illness.  A finding is not the same thing as a clinically significant abnormality, but it is not very reassuring either.

Then there is the possibility that a CXR might be done in the belief that one would be done for the same patient in a hospital setting.  That is also tricky since practices change.  The trouble is that they may change slowly and inconsistently.  I believe that the safest approach is to avoid second guessing what tests someone else will want.  I either ask them or leave them to request their own investigations.

So then there is the challenge of being up to date.  I would like to use this opportunity to tell all my secondary care colleagues how stupidly easy we have it in this regard.  The environment we work in continually provides us with updates and learning (if you are surrounded by the kind of clever yet pragmatic clinicians I work with).  I remember how General Practice is a relatively isolated learning environment and how difficult it is to keep abreast of changes in so very many areas.

That's the trouble with training and keeping up to date: these things have the tendency to look fun and manageable but actually have the tendency to expand exponentially and take over.  Meanwhile, we all have a ship to run. The solution: Cling on, outsource your troubles and let FOAMed give you the answers.

Snelson out


Disclaimer: I need reassurance too. I'm just not sure where to find it any more.

Reference:
BTS guideline for Community Acquired Pneumonia in Children

What was your question? (Easter egg - tests for bruising in children)

Fairly often, when a junior colleague is talking to me about a case I find myself asking, “What is your question?”  Sometimes the question comes at the end and sometimes not at all.  The thing is, I would prefer to have the question first and the details of the case second.  That helps me to understand everything that I am being told and it allows me to ask pertinent questions so that I can give useful advice.  I like it when people make things simple for me.

I realise however that this assumes that the person knows what their question is.  They might not.  Now this might seem like a bad thing but I have come to realise that it is not.  When someone comes to me without a clear idea of what is going on it means is that they have chosen me as a way of figuring out what their question is.  That is perfect.

What would be worse would be to do a test of some kind.  It might feel like this will add information, buy time, and clarify the question but it won’t.  If you don’t have a good idea of what the answer is before you do a test then you need to make sure that you know what your question is. 

Why is it particularly important to avoid unnecessary tests in paediatrics?  For two reasons:

• Investigations in children should not be done lightly.  They have a tendency to cause anxiety, pain or involve radiation.  Children rarely consent to having investigations so we have an obligation to avoid tests unless they are really needed.
• Most diagnoses in paediatrics can be made clinically and, if necessary, confirmed by an investigation.  It is unusual to use an investigation to look for a problem rather than to confirm it.  (The most significant exception to this is in testing urine in pre-school children.)

In most cases, one of two things is needed instead of tests:

• A more detailed history and examination
• Phone a friend

This brings me back to the discussions with my junior colleagues at work.  Discussing a case with a colleague is a superb way of clarifying your thoughts.  In many cases, the person who comes to me for advice has worked out what they want to in the process of discussing the case.  Sometimes I get phone calls from GPs who, half way through, decide they don’t need me any more.  If you work in primary or secondary care, this is the way to investigate a case, whether you know what your question is or not.

I was at the Trent Regional Paediatric Society yesterday and talking to Dr Suri from Rotherham who I know to be a very busy man.  Despite being so busy his genuine wish was that he was called more often for advice from his colleagues in primary care (and from the Emergency Department, I presume).  I realise that there is often little time to deal with a hospital switchboard but I would say that it should take less time than filling out a form for a test and later working out what to do with the result.

A good example of this effect of tests bringing more uncertainty is the child with bruises.  If you do a clotting screen I bet you will get one of the many results reported as being just outside the normal range.  Is that significant?  I don’t know.  What was the question?  If the question was “does this child have Haemophilia?” then the tests for that are complex and usually only done by a haematologist.  If the question was “can I rule out a clotting problem?” then even a normal clotting screen doesn't fully do that.

What is more likely to answer the question is a history that includes family history of bleeding disorders, excessive bleeding such as during dental procedures and cuts that never stopped bleeding.  An examination looking for lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, joint problems, bruises in unusual places and petechiae anywhere is indicated.  In most cases I will not need to go ahead and do any test.  If I do want a test I might get a full blood count.  In that case I know what my question is: does this patient have thrombocytopaenia (e.g. ITP)?  A clotting screen will not answer that question so I don’t add it on just because I am taking blood.   The bottom line is that a clotting screen is not a good way to rule in or rule out clotting disorders in well children.  If in doubt I phone a friend.

What is certainly true is that a test might confuse the situation but discussing the case with someone who wants to help never should, assuming that they are experienced and helpful.  So, if you find yourself wanting the answer to a question or even unsure what your question is, phone a friend.  That could be a colleague where you work.  Alternatively, and if you can get hold of us easily, I hope that you will find your consultant colleagues in secondary care better value than the test you were wondering if you should do.   Another clinician willing to discuss the case is so much better than a test.  Why?  Well you can question a colleague; you can get their experience in addition to your own; they will bring new perspectives.  You can even disagree with them.  I tried arguing with a test result once.  It didn't work.

What I have learned from all this is to stop asking my colleagues at work, “What is your question?” and instead to enquire if the person has a question.  If not, that’s great.  Now I know that we are figuring out what the question is together.

Edward Snelson
@sailordoctor

Disclaimer:  I may occasionally forget all this and ask you what your question is.  I am probably tired.  Please make allowances.

In Praise of Doing Nothing (Easter Egg – good safety-netting and saving lives)

When I ask parents if they have seen their GP about an illness they often reply, “Yes but they didn't do anything.”  I am most encouraged whenever I hear this.  So, no-one has done any tests or prescribed any treatment?  “Excellent” say I, “and your child is the healthier for it.” 

Here's why:

So, if you are one of these clinicians who are doing a lot of nothing, you have my thanks and admiration, because I know how much work it takes.   All I would like to do is add my top tips for making sure that the child with… let’s say a viral URTI, is sent out into the world with the best possible advice and safety-netting.  Why?  Because safety-netting is what makes all the difference when a child with an uncomplicated viral illness develops a secondary infection (or other complication).

• Try not to say the words ‘just a virus’ or ‘only a virus.’  Parents will tend to feel that you have not recognised how unwell their child is.  Acknowledge that the child is unwell and explain that viruses can make children quite unwell.
• To balance this, (lest they ignore signs of serious illness) explain that the hallmark of viral illness is that the child will intermittently pick up and look reasonable, often quite suddenly.  Children with sepsis and meningitis do not go from playing to lethargic and back again every few hours.
• Explain that children with a viral illness do sometimes get another infection added on which is usually more serious.  For this reason they must seek reassessment if the child is not picking up or if new problems develop such as abnormal breathing etc.  This part is especially important as occasionally I will see children brought in who are severely septic and the parents have delayed seeking another assessment because they were given what sounded to them like an ‘everything is fine and will be fine’ appraisal by the clinician that they saw.
• Advise regular paracetamol, fluids and to avoid overdressing the child.
• Do not tell parents that if the illness continues they should go to their emergency department to be assessed.  If they are well enough to be sent home then persistence of symptoms does not really warrant an ED attendance.  Save the ED option for the child who is worsening despite paracetamol etc.

It is truly an art to get that balance between being reassuring enough and safety-netting well.  However the worst possible thing would be to add tests to uncertainty or treatments to cover improbabilities.  So thank you and please keep doing nothing.

Edward Snelson

@sailordoctor

Disclaimer:  Safety-netting was invented by Roger Neighbour or possibly Houdini.  Check Wikipedia if you want.