Volume 12 Issues 6 June, 2022
“Life is a balance between holding on and letting go” – Rumi.
Assistant professor,
Department of pediatrics
Dr. RML Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow
India is undergoing sociodemographic changes such as increased literacy, health awareness, rising corporate culture, working parents, and nuclear families. It leads to a particular stratum of young, working parents who are health aware and specifically regarding child health. With all behavioral changes & awareness, there is significant upliftment of our little one’s health. But it has also been observed that parents tend to attend emergencies for their children’s minor ailments or seek repeated opinions for a single episode; in other words, they lack patience.
What makes a parent decide to bring a child with a minor illness to a hospital pediatric emergency department (PED) or urgent care center (UCC) rather than go to a GP or pharmacy.
Parental worry is a prominent factor in overstress. Parents’ negative emotions understandably feel about their child’s illness (e.g., worry, fear, panic, and anxiety) may lead them to attend PED non-urgently, either because they overestimate the danger of their child’s illness or because they want personal reassurance that they are doing the right thing. One consistent finding from behavioral science is that people’s emotional states can influence how much risk they are prepared to tolerate. Parents who feel great anxiety about their child’s health may be more likely to perceive the illness as being more severe than it is; this may, in turn, motivate them to attend PED.
Perceived advantages of PED – Parents welcome the reassurance of seeing a child specialist and explain that they are willing to wait if it takes to get the best care for their child. Many parents may prefer to see a pediatrician rather than a GP in child health, even though both are likely to be equally well-equipped to diagnose and treat minor illnesses. Social network influences several parents reported attending PED because they were encouraged by people around them. This is in line with a vast behavioral science literature showing the power of social norms on behavior. Parents may prefer to take the ‘safe option’ of attending PED for illnesses they regard as non-urgent, to be seen as good parents by their peers, or because they are responding to pressure from relatives pushing them to attend.
