Comparison of bedside risk assessment scores to predict the outcome of patients with acute febrile illness admitted to pediatric intensive care unit: A single-center prospective observational study

Abstract

Abstract Background: Acute febrile illness (AFI) is the most common presentation in the pediatric emergency room, and bedside risk assessment scores are very useful to identify those at risk. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive validity of quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA), quick Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 (qPELOD-2), Liverpool qSOFA (LqSOFA), and Pediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS) to predict the outcome of patients with AFI admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Subjects and Methods: This prospective observational study included children under the age of 18 years admitted to PICU. A thorough history and examination was performed in the ER, and the qSOFA, the qPELOD-2, the LqSOFA, and the PEWS scores were calculated. The primary outcome was inhospital mortality. The capacity of the scores to predict outcome was evaluated for calibration (using Hosmer–Lemeshow adaptation of the Chi-square test) and discrimination (using receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve). The scores were compared for any significant difference using z-statistics. Results: The study included 239 patients with the most common diagnosis of dengue fever. The overall mortality rate in the study was 8.4%. On the calibration of the models, all the scores showed a good fit to predict mortality. On discrimination by ROC curve, the LqSOFA score and PEWS had the best area under the curve for ROC curve (AUC-ROC) (0.913), followed by the qSOFA score (0.859). On comparing the AUC-ROC curve, no statistically significant difference was found between the scoring systems to predict mortality. Conclusions: Bedside risk stratification scores are a simple and convenient tool to identify patients at risk for mortality and assess prognosis. No single assessment tool was found superior to others.