Use of paediatric early warning scores in intermediate care units

Objective Paediatric early warning scores (EWS) were developed to detect deterioration in paediatric wards or emergency departments. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between three paediatric EWS and clinical deterioration detected by the nurse in paediatric intermediate care units (PImCU). Methods This was a prospective, observational, multicentre study at seven French regional hospitals that included all children Results A total of 2636 children were included for 14 708 observations to compute a posteriori the EWS. The discrimination of the three EWS for predicting calls to physicians by nurses was good (range: 0.87–0.91) for the derivation cohort and moderate (range: 0.71–0.76) for the validation cohort. Equations for probability thresholds of calls to physicians, taking into account the time t, the score at time t and the score at admission, are available. Conclusion These three EWS developed for children in paediatric wards or emergency departments can be used in PImCU to detect a clinical deterioration and predict the need for medical intervention.