Doctors, nurses, and parents are equally poor at estimating pediatric weights

Objective: To evaluate the relative accuracy of physicians, nurses, and par ents in estimating the weight of children presenting to the emergency depar tment. Methods: One hundred pediatric patients between the ages of 0 and 8 years p resenting to an urban teaching emergency department (40,000 patients per ye ar) were enrolled over a 1-month period (September 1996), The parents, tria ge nurse, and examining physician were asked to estimate the patient's weig ht, each blinded to the others' estimates and the child's actual weight. Results: Parents, nurses, and physicians all slightly underestimated patien t weights (P < 0.05), but these groups did not differ among themselves (P > 0.05). The total range of estimates was broad in each group (parents +292% to -41%, nurses +30% to -36%, and physicians +43% to -56%). There was no s ignificant relationship between estimates with regard to age, weight, or se x. Twenty-nine percent of physicians' estimates, 40% of nurses' estimates, and 16% of parents' estimates differed from the actual weight by more than 15%. Conclusion: Emergency department pediatric weight estimates by parents, nur ses, and physicians are significantly and similarly unreliable.