Tourist pediatric morbidity during their visit to Split-Dalmatia County

The aim was to determine morbidity of foreign children during their tourist visit to Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The study included medical documentation of 233 foreign children tourists aged under 18 years, hospitalized at Clinical Department of Pediatrics, Split University Hospital Center in the period from January 2007 to December 2013. Demographic data were statistically analyzed. Of 233 children tourists hospitalized at our department, 134 (57.5%) were boys. Most of the children tourists (51.1%) were aged 0-5 years. According to nationality, they were from 30 countries from all over the world, but mostly from Europe (97.9%). The highest number of children tourists were from Germany (14.2%). The highest percentage of children tourists (92.7%) were hospitalized during summer months. The mean length of hospital stay was 4.4±3.3 days. According to the reason for hospitalization, children tourists were mostly admitted to our hospital for nervous system symptoms (32.6%); 43.4% of these had febrile seizures and 39.5% epilepsy. The nervous system symptoms were followed by injury and poisoning (14.6%), respiratory symptoms (14.1%), submersion and heat injuries (9.9%), and digestive symptoms (9.4%). In conclusion, we describe foreign pediatric population hospitalized in the Split University Hospital Center during their vacation in the Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The largest number of children tourists were from Germany and the nervous system symptoms were the most common reason for hospitalization. Therefore, we suggest cooperation between the Croatian health care system and Croatian National Tourist Board for developing prevention strategies regarding morbidity in pediatric tourist population. In particular, prevention and fi rst line therapy for cerebral seizures should be broadly available, such as in hotels, apartments, and even on beaches.

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