Parental Worry IDs Most Cases of Severe Illness in Children and Teens

FRIDAY, Feb. 27, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Parental worry identifies most cases of severe illness in children and adolescents but has low specificity, according to a study published online Feb. 17 in JAMA Network Open.

Hilla Pöyry, M.D., Ph.D., from Oulu University Hospital in Finland, and colleagues evaluated whether parents accurately identify severe illnesses in their children before emergency department evaluation using a symptom questionnaire. The analysis included data from 2,375 children and adolescents visiting a pediatric emergency department from May 2024 to May 2025.

The researchers found that moderate-to-high parental worry showed the highest sensitivity (91.0 percent) but the lowest specificity (17.5 percent). There was modest diagnostic accuracy for other specific pediatric questions, but with limited additional value. The machine learning model (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.71) identified the strongest predictors of hospital admission as parental worry (feature importance score, 0.047), parent assessments of child or adolescent”s general condition (feature importance score, 0.046), and need for treatment (feature importance score, 0.141).

“While parental concern may serve as an initial screening indicator, it should be complemented by clinical evaluation and objective measures to avoid unnecessary escalation of care,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text