Practice guidelines to manage children admitted in a general pediatric department with very mild or mild acute infective diarrhea

A clinical-anamnestic card is proposed to gather the main minimal parameters which allow to monitor the course of children with severe or mild acute infective diarrhoea admitted to a pediatric department. This method has been verified through a back-evaluation of the data collected in our clinical-anamnestic cards throughout a period of seven months, and found it useful and appropriate. This case-record includes very mild or mild acute infective diarrhoea (corresponding to a loss lower than 10% of total body weight) in pediatric age children hospitalized in a general pediatric department. The clinical-anamnestic card is divided into five parts coinciding to five different clinical stages of the disease; during each stage, the essential anamnestic and/or clinical data necessary to a correct medical and nursing approach to the children affected with infective acute diarrhoea are recorded. The use of this card is also a good way to engage physicians, nurses and children's parents too, to pay attention to the substantial factors necessary for a correct management of the disease. The evaluation of these clinical-anamnestic cards led to the following general conclusions:--to keep body weight unmodified from the day of admission to the day of discharge--to use very seldom milk without lactose--to keep children on a very short term diet in order to quickly restore intestinal function, to increase body weight and to discharge children in few days.

Published by Minerva pediatrica, 1999. The guideline itself is at the source linked here.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10544637/