Validity of Pneumonia Severity Score in Predicting Mortality of Pediatric Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Pneumonia is estimated to kill 410,000 children in India every year. In India, recent estimates in under-fivessuggest that 13% of deaths and 24% of the National Burden of Disease is due to pneumonia.Very few studies have evaluatedthe predictors of mortality in children with pneumonia in developing countries.Hence, this study was planned to study predictorsof mortality in children aged 1–59 months based on pneumonia severity score (PSS) in hospitalized patients with severepneumonia.Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the factors (clinical and investigational) contributing to the mortality in patientsbased on PSS in hospitalized patients diagnosed with severe pneumonia.Materials and Methods: The present observational longitudinal study was carried out in a tertiary care PICU in a Govt. NSCBMedical College, Jabalpur for of 1 years (Ian 2019–December 2019). Children diagnosed as severe pneumonia of either sexbetween age group 1–59 months admitted in a hospital were enrolled in the study. Demographic data, clinical details, andlaboratory parameters of the enrolled cases were recorded in a predesigned pretested pro forma. PSS was calculated andcorrelated with the outcome of the patients enrolled and followed up till discharge or death.Results: Mortality was observed in 11 cases, and of them, 4 (36.4%) were males and 7 (63.6%) patients were females. This studyshowed that among clinical parameters pulse rate and SpO2 were significantly raised (63.6%) and saturation was significantly<90 (72.7%) in children who succumbed to death (P < 0.05). This study observed a statistically highly significant associationof PSS with the outcome of children (P < 0.01).