Setting the priorities for paediatric emergency medicine research

Associate Professor Simon Craig

A large collaborative study of paediatric emergency researchers across Australia and New Zealand, including researchers at Monash University, has identified asthma management, emergency intubation, imaging of suspected cervical spine injuries and management of sepsis as priority areas for future multicentre research.

Published in the Emergency Medicine Journal and conducted through the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) network (www.predict.org.au), the research collaboration includes all hospitals with major paediatric emergency departments across Australia and New Zealand.

Monash University researcher and Monash Health paediatric emergency medicine physician Associate Professor Simon Craig was co-author on the study that surveyed practising senior paediatric emergency physicians to identify priorities for future research.

“We identified a number of key areas which clinicians believe should be a focus for acute paediatric research in the next few years: high flow oxygenation in intubation, fluid volume resuscitation and vasopressor use in sepsis, imaging in cervical spine injury, and intravenous therapy for asthma,” Associate Professor Craig said.

“These topics are relevant to clinicians practicing anywhere in the world, and have been independently identified by similar studies in the UK, Ireland and North America. Given the nature of paediatric emergency medicine, we are likely to need global collaboration to answer these research questions.”

Associate Professor Craig said there have been concerns raised regarding research waste, either through poor design, lack of publication, or incomplete reporting.

“Crucially, it has been estimated that around half of all research studies do not take into account lessons and results from previous related research,” Associate Professor Craig said.

“An understanding of the research priorities for practicing clinicians allows us to ensure that these topics are systematically examined to identify gaps in evidence, and/or gaps in knowledge translation, prior to the design of future trials.”

“Interestingly, we also identified a number of areas where practicing clinicians identified research questions which had already been answered by existing studies – either by clinical trials or systematic reviews. This highlights the importance of translating research knowledge into clinical practice which remains a challenge for acute paediatric care.”