Results
A total of 665 cases were included and 85 infants received escalated care. The variables included risk score for escalated care within 5 days of admission to the emergency room including prematurity, poor feeding, nasal flaring and/or grunting, and previous wheezing episodes requiring hospitalization, The model has a high specificity (99.6%) with acceptable AUC of 0.70 (CI 95% 0.60- 0.74).
Conclusion :
A clinical risk score was created based on the odds ratio of each of the identified variables, which appears to be useful for estimating the absolute risk of escalated care within 5 days of admission to the ED. However, external validation is required before this clinical score is applied in general practice in any ED setting.
Keywords: bronchiolitis, asthma, risk, prediction rule