title: Welcome back? Frequent attenders to a pediatric primary care center.
abstract: This study examines frequent attenders of a pediatric primary care clinic at a large urban children's hospital--who they are and their reasons for frequent attendance to the clinic. The literature suggests that some visits by frequent attenders may not be medically necessary, and these additional appointments may impair others' access to medical care within the same system. The key to eliminating excessive primary care visits is to determine if it is a problem in the primary care practice (quantify the problem), explore the reasons for the visits (from the patients' perspective), and then provide educational interventions that address the various causes for the extra visits and encourage the use of available resources, either ancillary services in the practice itself or resources and agencies available in the community (e.g. social service, legal aid).
authors.affiliation: Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, General & Community Pediatrics, Cincinnati, OH 45229, USA. melissa.klein@cchmc.org
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Vaughn
authors.forename: Raymond C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Trisha
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006300:Health Services Misuse; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006786:Hospitals, Urban / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009820:Ohio; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research