Why Do Parents Bring Their Children to the Emergency Department? A Systematic Inventory of Motives

Table 4

Correlations between motives, demographic characteristics, and severity indices.

Characteristics	Motives
	SQD	BP	ECS	CRP	EF	DPC
Gender	−.09	−.08	−.02	−.24	.09	.05
Child’s age	−.06	−.02	.03	−.09	.24	.05
Mother’s age	−.14	−.13	−.11	−.22	.12	.04
Father’s age	−.09	−.22	−.08	−.07	.11	.03
Siblings	−.20	−.05	−.21	.05	.26	.14
Level of education	−17	−.05	−.09	−.19	−.10	−.04
Number of previous consultations	.01	.05	−.03	.12	−.03	−.00
Number of parents’ ER visits in total	−.03	.04	−.03	.21	.09	.01
Complete documentation	.15	.13	.08	−.00	−.17	−.02
Time since first symptoms	.13	.08	.18	−.04	−.31	.04
Level of severity	−.06	−.05	−.01	−.21	.10	.18
Subsequent hospitalization	.09	.06	.14	−.15	−.17	−.18

SQD = Seeking Quick Diagnosis, Treatment, and Reassurance, BP = PED as the Best Place, ECS = Empathic Concern for Child’s Suffering, CRP = Being Considered by Others as Responsible Parents, EF = External Factors, and DPC = Dissatisfaction with Previous Consultation.
For ratings and ages (both continuous variables), classical Pearson correlations were computed; for ratings and the other, dichotomous variables, biserial correlations were computed.
< .05.