Distinguishing children with serious infections from those with milder, self-limiting febrile illnesses remains a daily challenge in primary care and hospital emergency department. Measurement of vital signs is recommended as part of this assessment. To determine whether vital signs can predict children with serious bacterial infections, we studied the data of children aged 1 month to < 16 years presented who with acute febrile illness to a Pediatric emergency department in Sudan. Sample size was 150 patients. The severity of infection was classified as serious or not serious bacterial infection. Vital signs and oxygen saturation were recorded and compared to the final outcome of these children. Data analyzed bivariably and multivariably using regression analysis. Ten percent of patients were classified as having serious bacterial infection. Tachycardia and tachypnea were the most sensitive and specific in predicting serious bacterial infections with (80%, 86.6 % sensitivity) and (97.4%, 83.7% specificity), respectively. High temperature, severe hypoxemia and hypotension were the least sensitive but highly specific signs of serious bacterial infections. As a conclusion, vital signs can be used to differentiate children with serious bacterial infections from those with non-serious bacterial infections in pediatric emergency departments and has comparable sensitivity to more complicated triage systems.
Key words: Child; Sensitivity and specificity; serious bacterial infections; vital signs
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