6050 Food insecurity in paediatric emergency department – was our intervention useful?

Objectives This is a follow-on project, the initial projects1 were carried out to identify food insecure (FI) families and to offer brief interventions by our social prescribers/link workers (SPLW). This study aimed to study if the intervention we offered to the patient was of benefit. Also, to identify barriers to accepting help in those already identified as at risk in previous studies. Methods Purposeful sampling from data collected in 2nd phase of FI project (February 2023) Contacted the families who consented to intervention, to collect qualitative data to achieve our aims and objectives. Results 76/205 patients (37%) screened positive for FI. 53/76 patients consented to SPLW referral, and 23/76 patients declined help. These 23 families gave their reasons for refusing referral which can be seen in table 1. 23/53 families were successfully contacted by SPLW, I was able to obtain feedback from 17/23. Among them, 8/17 accessed the support offered. 9 families reported some improvement in their situation while 8 families did not. Other social determinants were addressed by SPLW in the same phone call, such as finances and housing issues. There were 11 families who requested intervention and then reported no support needed. The reasons for declining support are tabulated in table 2. In the remaining FI families, 35 patients were unreachable and 1 reported filling in the form wrongly. Conclusion A significant portion (37%) of families presented to the paediatric ED are struggling with FI. Referral to SPLW appears to have a positive impact on these families. Besides, SPLW helps tackle other social determinants too. Also, we noted that a handful of patients could neither recall the conversations with SPLW nor access support offered, which could be due to many reasons including language barriers and digital exclusion. A page has been created on our patient-facing website to summarize the useful resources available to assist FI patients. Reference Sharkey E, Ollerton J, Gilhooley C, et al. 400 Prevalence of food insecurity in a paediatric emergency department and feasibility of clinician intervention. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2023;108:A8-A9.