Baby Check: a scoring system to grade the severity of acute systemic illness in babies under 6 months old

A scoring system has been developed to grade the severity of acute systemic illness in babies under 6 months of age. Data were collected on 28 symptoms and 47 signs from 1007 babies with a spectrum of illness ranging from well to seriously ill. Ordinal regression analysis identified 19 symptoms and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archives of disease in childhood 1991-01, Vol.66 (1), p.100-106
Main Authors: Morley, C J, Thornton, A J, Cole, T J, Hewson, P H, Fowler, M A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Data Collection - methods
Diseases
Education
Evaluation
Health aspects
Health status indicators
Hospitalization
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Infants
Medical sciences
Mothers
Pediatrics
Physical Examination - methods
Predictive Value of Tests
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Regression analysis
Severity of Illness Index
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Summary:A scoring system has been developed to grade the severity of acute systemic illness in babies under 6 months of age. Data were collected on 28 symptoms and 47 signs from 1007 babies with a spectrum of illness ranging from well to seriously ill. Ordinal regression analysis identified 19 symptoms and signs which in combination graded the severity of the illness most accurately. The coefficients were converted to scores. The higher the score the more serious the illness. When applied to a theoretical cohort of 10,000 babies at home, a score less than 8 has a specificity of 98%, and a score of 13 or more a sensitivity of 92%. The positive predictive value for serious illness increases from zero at a score of zero to approaching 100% at scores over 30. The scoring system has been developed into score cards for parents and professionals.
ISSN:0003-9888
1468-2044
DOI:10.1136/adc.66.1.100