Pediatrik erken uyarı skorunun Türkçe versiyonunun geçerlilik ve güvenirlik çalışması

Aim: The pediatric early warning score (PEWS) identifies pediatric patients at risk for clinical deterioration and can helpless-experienced providers get a sense of which patients may need escalation of care. The purpose of the study was to adapt the PEWS into Turkish and evaluate its validity in pediatric patients admitted to the emergency. Material and Methods: This study was conducted between May and October 2022 on 228 patients aged 17 and under in the pediatric emergency department of a tertiary care hospital. In the pilot phase of the study, scoring of the first 30 patients was performed by three nurses in the emergency department. In the second phase, the validity of the PEWS scale was evaluated. Validity of the scoring system in predicting admission was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). Results: The mean age of the children was 6.37 ± 4.72 years. Phase I demonstrated good inter-rater reliability (kappa = 0.75). In phase II, 22 patients (9.6%) were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) during the study period. AUC for predicting was 0.948 (95% CI: 0.915–0.981). According to ROC curve analysis, a cut-off value for PEWS score was found to be 4 (PEWS >4) for admitted to the ICU. Sensitivity and specificity in predicting ICU admission with the cut-off PEWS ≥4 was 86.36% and 90.78%, respectively (PPV, 50%; NPV, 90.48%). The sensitivity and specificity in predicting admission with a cut-off of PEWS ≥1 was 100% and 59.22%, respectively (PPV, 20.75%; NPV, 100%). Conclusion: The Turkish version of PEWS can be helpful in assessing patient status in pediatric emergency department with acceptable validity and can serve as a potentially screening tool for prediction of ICU admission.