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The authors sought to describe the epidemiology of and risk factors for recurrent and high‐frequency use of the emergency department (ED) by children.

This was a retrospective cohort study using a database of children aged 0 to 17 years, inclusive, presenting to 22 EDs of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) during 2007, with 12‐month follow‐up after each index visit. ED diagnoses for each visit were categorized as trauma, acute medical, or chronic medical conditions. Recurrent visits were defined as any repeat visit; high‐frequency use was defined as four or more recurrent visits. Generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to measure the strength of associations between patient and visit characteristics and recurrent ED use.

A total of 695,188 unique children had at least one ED visit each in 2007, with 455,588 recurrent ED visits in the 12 …