A Mobile App for Self-Triage for Pediatric Emergency Patients in Japan: 4 Year Descriptive Epidemiological Study

BACKGROUND: When children suffer sudden illness or injury, many parents wonder whether they should go to the hospital immediately or call an ambulance. In 2015, we developed a mobile app that allows parents or guardians to determine the urgency of their child’s condition or call an ambulance and that indicates available hospitals and clinics when their child is suddenly sick or injured by simple selection of the child’s chief complaints and symptoms. However, the effectiveness of medical apps used by the general public has not been well evaluated. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to clarify the use profile of this mobile app based on data usage in the app. METHODS: This study was a descriptive epidemiological study with a 4-year study period running from January 2016 to December 2019. We included cases in which the app was used either by the children themselves or by their parents and other guardians. Cases in which the app was downloaded but never actually used were excluded from this study. Continuous variables are presented as median and IQR, and categorical variables are presented as actual number and percentages. RESULTS: The app was used during the study period for 59,375 children whose median age was 1 year (IQR 0-3 years). The app was used for 33,874 (57.05%) infants, 16,228 (27.33%) toddlers, 8102 (13.65%) elementary school students, and 1117 (1.88%) junior high school students, with 54 (0.09%) having an unknown status. Furthermore, 31,519 (53.08%) were male and 27,329 (46.03%) were female, with sex being unknown for 527 (0.89%) children. “Sickness” was chosen for 49,101 (78.51%) patients, and “injury, poisoning, foreign, substances and others” was chosen for 13,441 (21.49%). For “sickness,” “fever” was the most commonly selected option (22,773, 36.41%), followed by “cough” (4054, 6.48%), and “nausea/vomiting” (3528, 5.64%), whereas for “injury, poisoning, foreign substances and others,” “head and neck injury” was the most commonly selected option (3887, 6.22%), followed by “face and extremities injury” (1493, 2.39%) and “injury and foreign substances in eyes” (1255, 2.01%). CONCLUSIONS: This study clarified the profile of use of a self-triage app for pediatric emergency patients in Japan.