"Sick or not sick?" A mixed methods study evaluating the rapid determination of illness severity in a pediatric emergency department.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-10-2021

Institution/Department

Pediatrics

Journal Title

Diagnosis (Berl)

MeSH Headings

Anti-Bacterial Agents, Child, Emergency Service, Hospital, Humans, Patient Acuity, Patient Admission, ROC Curve

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Experienced physicians must rapidly identify ill pediatric patients. We evaluated the ability of an illness rating score (IRS) to predict admission to a pediatric hospital and explored the underlying clinical reasoning of the gestalt assessment of illness.

METHODS: We used mixed-methods to study pediatric emergency medicine physicians at an academic children's hospital emergency department (ED). Physicians rated patients' illness severity with the IRS, anchored by 0 (totally well) and 10 (critically ill), and shared their rationale with concurrent think-aloud responses. The association between IRS and need for hospitalization, respiratory support, parenteral antibiotics, and resuscitative intravenous (IV) fluids were analyzed with mixed effects linear regression. Area under the curve (AUC) receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve and test characteristics at different cut-points were calculated for IRS as a predictor of admission. Think-aloud responses were qualitatively analyzed via inductive process.

RESULTS: A total of 141 IRS were analyzed (mean 3.56, SD 2.30, range 0-9). Mean IRS were significantly higher for patients requiring admission (4.32 vs. 3.13, p

CONCLUSIONS: Rapid assessments as captured by the IRS differentiated pediatric patients who required admission and medical interventions. Think-aloud responses for the rationale for rapid assessments may form the basis for teaching the skill of identifying ill pediatric patients.

ISSN

2194-802X

First Page

207

Last Page

215

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