Prognostic value of the pediatric early warning score (pews) in children aged 1 month to 5 years old at the emergency department of can tho children’s hospital

Nguyen Quynh Nhu, Ta Van Tram, Ngo Chi Quang

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Abstract

The Pediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS) has good prognostic value in early detection of the risk of severe progression. We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study on 103 pediatric patients aged 1 month to 5 years old who were admitted to the Emergency Department at Can Tho Children’s Hospital from 2023 to 2025, with the objective of determining the prognostic value of the PEWS in young children. Among the 103 recorded cases, 21 children (20.4%) experienced severe progression requiring admission to the Intensive Care Unit. The PEWS score in the severe progression group (7 points) was higher than in the non-severe group (3.5 points), p < 0.001. The PEWS had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.801 (95% CI: 0.684 - 0.917, p < 0.001). A cut-off score of 4.5 had a sensitivity of 90.5%, specificity of 57.3%, and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.16, indicating its usefulness in ruling out severe disease. A cut-off score of 6.5 had a sensitivity of 52.4%, specificity of 90.2%, and a positive likelihood ratio of 5.34, suggesting its potential for identifying severe cases.

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References

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