Introduction:

nurseries arise to meet a social need, but are not without influence on children's health.

Patients and methods:

prospective longitudinal study of two cohorts of children aged 0-24 months (they differ in attendance or not to care); attending consultations of 33 pediatricians of Public Health Service of Asturias. The data were obtained from the clinical history and interviews scheduled (6, 12, 18 and 24 months). They were compared: average number of visits to emergency rooms and pediatric, and influence of different variables collected. We analyzed: the registered morbidity (acute infections and recurrent wheezing) between frequent attenders (HF) and not HF.

Results:

the average number of visits to pediatric visits is significantly higher for children attending kindergarten in all age groups studied. There is a greater percentage of HF among those attending nursery: children between 0 and 6 months that have a RR to come to be HF to emergency services up to 6 times higher than those not attending and RR 4 times more to be HF to pediatric primary care.

Conclusions:

1) attendance at kindergarten is associated with increased likelihood of being HF to Emergency and pediatric Primary Health Care services; 2) the HF children suffer more respiratory and infectious diseases, which are not explained by attending to a nursery, y 3) the above leads to higher drug consumption.

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