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{
    "pk": 17605,
    "title": "Influence of Body Mass Index on the Evaluation and Management of Pediatric Abdominal Pain in the Emergency Department",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Introduction: \nChildhood obesity is a serious concern in the United States, with over one third of the pediatric population classified as obese. Abdominal pain is one of the most common chief complaints among pediatric emergency department (ED) visits. We hypothesized that overweight and obese children being evaluated in the ED for abdominal pain would have higher resource utilization than their normal and underweight peers.\nMethods: \nThis was a retrospective review of pediatric patients <18 years who presented with abdominal pain to the ED of a tertiary care center from January 1, 2014–September 3, 2020. Patients were excluded if they did not have both a height and weight recorded. We categorized patients as underweight (body mass index [BMI] <5th percentile); normal weight (BMI 5th to <85th percentile), overweight (BMI 85th to<95th percentile); or obese (BMI ≥95th percentile). Descriptive statistics were used to examine the study population. We used chi-square tests to examine the differences in patient characteristics between normal/underweight patients and overweight/obese patients. The Kruskal-Wallis test was completed for examining differences in the medians. We used multivariable logistic regression to examine visit characteristics associated with overweight/obese patients, including ED interventions, testing, and length of stay (LOS).\nResults: \nOf the 184 subjects included in the analysis, nine (4.9%) were underweight, 108 (58.7%) werenormal weight, 21 (11.4%) were overweight, and 46 (25.0%) were obese. Patients with a BMI of ≥85th percentile were older (median 15 vs 13 years, P = 0.01). They were otherwise similar in demographics. There was no significant difference between normal/underweight and overweight/obese subjects in disposition (37% vs 43% discharge, P = 0.38), 72-hour return (7% vs 6%, P = 0.82), ED LOS (median 4.42 vs 3.95 hours, P = 0.195), or inpatient LOS (median 42.0 vs 34.2 hours, P = 0.06). There were no statistically significant differences in total number of ED tests or interventions received by overweight/obese patients compared to normal/underweight patients, and each subject received a median of six tests (interquartile range [IQR] 4–7) and two interventions (IQR 1–3).\nConclusion: \nAmong pediatric patients presenting to the ED with abdominal pain, we found that patient characteristics and ED resource utilization (including testing, intervention, disposition, and LOS) did not differ significantly across BMI categories.",
    "language": "en",
    "license": {
        "name": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0",
        "short_name": "CC BY 4.0",
        "text": "Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.",
        "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "Pediatric, Abdominal Pain, Body Mass Index, BMI, Emergency, PEM"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Pediatrics",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93r144fj",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Carly",
            "middle_name": "A.",
            "last_name": "Theiler",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Iowa, Department of Emergency Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa",
            "department": "None"
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Morgan",
            "middle_name": "Bobb",
            "last_name": "Swanson",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Iowa, Department of Emergency Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa",
            "department": "None"
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Ryan",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Squires",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Indiana University, Department of Emergency Medicine, Bloomington, Indiana",
            "department": "None"
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Karisa",
            "middle_name": "K.",
            "last_name": "Harland",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Iowa, Department of Emergency Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa",
            "department": "None"
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": "2022-10-29T00:56:51Z",
    "date_accepted": "2022-10-29T00:56:51Z",
    "date_published": "2023-08-08T18:33:06Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/westjem/article/17605/galley/8982/download/"
        }
    ]
}