[Monitoring of oxygen pressure in brain tissue in severely injured patients under neurocritical care]

Head injury continues to be the main cause of mortality and morbidity among young people in Europe. The use of technology in managing severe head injury has increased considerably and certain applications may be confusing to physicians who have little experience in neurology but who are charged with providing neurocritical care. Monitoring of brain-injured patients usually focuses on managing intracranial pressure and recording perfusion pressure. New techniques have recently been incorporated into routine monitoring of oxygenation and metabolism in the brain. Continuous monitoring of the partial oxygen pressure of brain tissue (PtO2) has become more common in neurocritical care units, making bedside evaluation of the effects of injuries and therapeutic measures possible. This review discusses technical, safety, and reliability aspects of PtO2 monitoring and its potential advantages in comparison with other techniques for evaluating brain tissue oxygenation.

[Inappropriate use of pediatric hospitalization]

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to identify the inappropriate utilization of pediatric hospitalization, its reasons and associated factors.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Three hundred twenty-three medical records were randomly selected among the patients aged 6 months to 14 years and hospitalized in 1995 in a public hospital of the Community of Valencia. The validated Spanish version of the "Pediatric Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol" was retrospectively applied. The proportions of inappropriate admissions and stays and their reasons were estimated and their association with certain factors analyzed.

RESULTS

Of the admissions 17.7% (95% CI: 13.5-21.8) and 15.5% of the stays (95% CI: 11.5-19.4) were considered inappropriate. The most frequent reason for inappropriate admission was that diagnostic and therapeutic needs might have been solved by ambulatory care. Inappropriate stays were in mot cases (70%) due to that doctors did not pay attention to keeping the patient in the hospital although acute care was no longer needed. Female patients, non-elective admissions, admissions by general pediatricians or traumatology and weekend stays had significantly higher proportions of inappropriate utilization.

CONCLUSIONS

A considerable proportion of inappropriate admissions and stays was observed, although it is in the lower range of those observed in other studies in pediatric patients. The most frequent reasons were attributed to an excessively conservative medical practice.

[Inappropriate utilization of pediatric hospitalization. Validation of the pediatric appropriateness evaluation protocol Spanish version]

OBJECTIVE

To validate the Spanish version of the Pediatric Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (PAEP).

METHODS

The protocol was applied by two independent reviewers to a sample of 104 clinical records of pediatric patients (age 6 months to 14 years) admitted to a general hospital in the Valentian Community. Reliability was tested by comparing their results. Validity was tested by comparing the results of one reviewer with the judgment of three pediatricians. The following measures were calculated: overall agreement (IO), specific agreement (IE), Cohen's κ, inappropriate use ratio, and, to evaluate the predictive value, sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive value.

RESULTS

Interobserver reliability was high: the IO for admissions was 94.2% and 96.2% for days of care. The IE was 66.7% and 75% respectively, and κ showed values of excellent agreement: 0.77 (95% CI 0.59-0.94) for admissions and 0.83 (95% CI 0.68-0.99) for days of care. Validity was moderate: the IO for admissions was 92.35, and 90.4% for days of care. The IE was 60% and 58.3% respectively, and κ showed values of good agreement: 0.70 (95% CI 0.51-0.90) for admissions and 0.68 (95% CI 0.50-0.86) for days of care. Inappropriate use ratio was 1.13 for admissions and 0.73 for days of care. The sensitivity and specificity were high for admissions (80% and 94% respectively), while sensitivity was lower for days of care (64% and 98%). Regarding the prevalence of inappropriate use of this study, the positive predictive value ranged between 71% and 88%, and the negative predictive value ranged between 97% and 91%.

CONCLUSIONS

PAEP has a high reliability, moderate validity and good predictive value face to clinical judgment, and it is a useful instrument for assessing the inappropriate utilization of pediatric hospitalization.

[Renal function in diabetic children and adolescents. Relation to the duration and level of control of the disease]

We have evaluated different aspects of the kidney function of 68 diabetic children and adolescents with the aim of estimating the prevalence of nephropathy and its influential factors. In addition, the kidney function is followed for an additional 18 months. The results are compared with those obtained from a group of healthy children of the same ages. No clinical nephropathy existed, with only 4 (5.97%) and 8 cases of incipient nephropathy and microalbuminuria, respectively, being demonstrated. The urinary albumin excretion rate (AER) is very clearly connected with the duration and the metabolic control of diabetes. Elevated values for AER were also observed in poorly controlled diabetics and those with prolonged evolution. Nevertheless, the last point may be secondary to the development of puberty, since with the same duration of diabetes (under 5 years), the proportion of pubertal patients with microalbuminuria is higher than that for prepubertal children.

[Psychological evaluation of diabetic students and their families]

A population of 29 diabetic school children has been studied with the purpose of evaluating the repercussion the disease has on the psychosocial development of the child. Eysenck's inventory of personality, Achembach's IPCDS and the drawing of the human figure have been employed as psychological test. The sociological aspects are valued through interviewing and questionnaires. The outstanding conclusions are: 1. Diabetes does not condition the development of a specific personality. 2. Psychiatric alterations and pathological behaviours are not present in the diabetic school child with a greater frequency than in the normal child. The most problematic is the pattern of behaviour found in preadolescent teenagers, individual cases stand out in relation to their antisocial and reserved behaviour. 3. The disease neither cuts down social life, nor does it condition the appearance of school-failure, but it does have a repercussion and a modifying effect on practical aspects of family life and the relations among its members.

[Limitation in articular movement in diabetic children]

The presence of limited movement articular (LMA) was examined in 58 insulin-dependent diabetic children 38 boys and 20 girls in a range of 1 to 18 years. The children were ill during a mean of 4 years and 7 months +/- 3 years and nine months. The MAL was present in 36.2% of diabetic children versus 2.08% in the control group (96 healthy children). The presence of MAL has a statistically significant correlation with: age (9 years or more) (p less than 0.01); poor metabolic control (specially in severe forms) (p less than 0.001) and retinopathy (p less than 0.02). The examination of LMA is very useful for the early diagnosis of retinopathy in high risk patients because of the very frequent association of both complications of diabetes.