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Make your Best Guess: An updated method for paediatric weight estimation in emergencies
Author(s) -
Tinning Katie,
Acworth Jason
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
emergency medicine australasia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1742-6723
pISSN - 1742-6731
DOI - 10.1111/j.1742-6723.2007.01026.x
Subject(s) - medicine , weight estimation , triage , estimation , pediatrics , observational study , retrospective cohort study , body weight , emergency medicine , statistics , surgery , mathematics , management , economics
Background: For children requiring weight‐based resuscitative measures, it is often difficult to obtain an accurate weight. In these cases, it is common practice to estimate the weight based on age. As the average weight of Australian children has increased over the last two decades, the widely used advanced paediatric life support (APLS) method might systematically underestimate weight in paediatric patients. Objective: To devise a simple age‐based method for estimating weight that is more accurate than the APLS method. Methods: A retrospective observational study of all patients (aged 0–14 years) presenting to a tertiary paediatric ED over a 3 year period was performed. Presentations were divided into infants (<12 months), preschool‐aged (1–4 years) and school‐aged children (5–14 years). Weight measurements performed at triage were recorded and regression analysis performed to produce equations describing the relationship between weight and age for each group. Results: There were 70 181 presentations suitable for inclusion in the present study. Mean weight for age (±2 SD) is presented in tabular form. Three simplified linear equations were derived to calculate mean weight for age.Conclusion: The present study devised an age‐based method for paediatric weight estimation which should more accurately predict weight than the widely used APLS formula.