The association between deprivation levels, attendance rate and triage category of children attending a children's accident and emergency department.

<bold>Objective: </bold>To determine the relation between deprivation category, triage score and accident and emergency (A&E) attendance for children under the age of 13.<bold>Design: </bold>Retrospective study of all children attending an A&E department over one year.<bold>Setting: </bold>A paediatric teaching hospital in Edinburgh.<bold>Subjects: </bold>All children attending the A&E department who had a postcode and a triage score documented on attendance. The postcode was used to determine the deprivation category and the triage scored the severity of illness or injury.<bold>Main Outcome Measure: </bold>The relation between deprivation category, triage score and frequency of attendance.<bold>Results: </bold>There is a trend towards increased attendance in all triage categories for deprivation categories 6 and 7.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Attendance at A&E is not only related to severity of injury but also to deprivation category. The reason why people from disadvantaged areas attend more frequently needs further evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]