ERNIE4: Urine and CRP Point-of-care Test in Acutely Ill Children (ERNIE4)

The design is a cross-sectional cohort study with a nested longitudinal follow-up in acutely children presenting to ambulatory care.

The cross-sectional cohort study will compare an innovative urine test with conventional dipstick testing to establish their relative accuracy to diagnose urinary tract infections, and construct an algorithm consisting of clinical features, urine test results and CRP point-of-care testing to identify serious infections. The longitudinal follow-up study will describe illness trajectories of children with an intermediate CRP test result (5-80 mg/L) at first contact.

The study will run in general practices and community paediatrics in Flanders. Recruitment to the study is expected to last 18 months, with each patient entering the study only once. Children and their parents/guardians will be approached for possible participation in the study by practice staff. There is only one study visit.

Those who agree to participation via written informed consent will have demographics and clinical features recorded. All children will be asked to provide a urine sample on study entry. Subsequently, CRP point-of-care testing will be conducted in all children testing positive on a clinical prediction rule, and in a random sample of children testing negative on that rule. Follow-up information for all children will be collected using general practice notes, hospital records and direct patient/parent contact.

Treatment and other management decisions will be left to the treating physicians' discretion.