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Table 2 Performance of the Bedside Paediatric Early Warning System scores in 2,074 hospitalised childrena

From: Multicentre validation of the bedside paediatric early warning system score: a severity of illness score to detect evolving critical illness in hospitalised children

 

Case patients

Control patients

  

Patient characteristics

n

Median score (IQR)

n

Median score (IQR)

P value

AUCROC (95% CI)

All

686

8 (5 to 12)

1,388

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.87 (0.85 to 0.89)

Urgent ICU

381

10 (7 to 13)

772

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.92 (0.90 to 0.94)

Code blue

305

6 (3 to 10)

616

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.81 (0.78 to 0.84)

Age

      

   < 3 months

190

7 (4 to 10)

333

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.83 (0.79 to 0.86)

   3 to < 12 months

164

8 (6 to 11)

362

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.86 (0.82 to 0.90)

   1 to < 5 years

134

9 (5 to 13)

286

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.90 (0.87 to 0.93)

   5 to 12 years

110

10 (5 to 13)

221

2 (1 to 3)

< 0.0001

0.89 (0.84 to 0.93)

   > 12 years

88

11 (6 to 14)

186

3 (2 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.91 (0.87 to 0.95)

Hospital

      

   A

324

9 (6 to 12)

658

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.88 (0.85 to 0.90)

   B

238

6 (4 to 9)

478

1 (1 to 3)

< 0.0001

0.89 (0.86 to 0.92)

   C

80

12 (9 to 15.5)

164

5 (2 to 6)

< 0.0001

0.91 (0.87 to 0.95)

   D

44

9 (4 to 12)

88

2 (1 to 3)

< 0.0001

0.89 (0.83 to 0.96)

Chronic disease

      

   Transplant

58

11 (7 to 12)

73

2 (1 to 3)

< 0.0001

0.94 (0.90 to 0.98)

   Heart disease

233

9 (6 to 11)

386

3 (2 to 5)

< 0.0001

0.85 (0.81 to 0.88)

   Severe cerebral palsy

62

10 (7 to 13)

34

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.92 (0.86 to 0.98)

Medical device

      

   Tracheostomy

57

7 (4 to 11)

36

4 (1.5 to 5.5)

0.0002

0.75 (0.67 to 0.86)

   Feeding tube

138

10 (6 to 13)

112

3 (1 to 5)

< 0.0001

0.87 (0.82 to 0.91)

   Home oxygen

47

9 (6 to 11)

27

5 (2 to 7)

0.0001

0.81 (0.69 to 0.90)

Acute condition

      

   Seizures > 15 minutes

47

6 (3 to 10)

6

2 (2 to 4)

0.133

0.73 (0.48 to 0.99)

   DKA

0

NA

3

2 (1 to 2)

NA

NA

Complexity

      

   > 3 services

164

9 (6 to 12)

136

3 (1 to 5)

< 0.0001

0.87 (0.83 to 0.91)

   > 10 medications/day

162

10 (6 to 13)

109

3 (2 to 5)

< 0.0001

0.85 (0.81 to 0.90)

Recent transition

      

   Recent primary service transfer

18

7 (3 to 8)

5

1 (0 to 2)

0.048

0.89 (0.75 to 1.00)

   Previous ICU admission

345

8 (6 to 11)

386

3 (1 to 5)

< 0.0001

0.84 (0.81 to 0.87)

   < 24 hours after surgery

55

7 (4 to 10)

61

2 (1 to 4)

< 0.0001

0.79 (0.71 to 0.88)

  1. aIQR = interquartile range; AUCROC = area under the receiver operating characteristic curve; DKA = diabetic ketoacidosis; 95% CI: 95% confidence interval; NA: not applicable. Data are from 2,074 patients admitted to four university-affiliated paediatric hospitals. Scores were calculated from 23,288 hours with one or more items of the seven-item Bedside PEWS score.
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