Pediatric predictive index for hospitalization in acute asthma

Hospitalization patterns in severe acute asthma in children

“…1 Furthermore, the usefulness of measuring pulmonary function to predict later hospital admission has been questioned by some authors. 10,[18][19][20][21][22] The only posttreatment parameters that have been identified as useful admission predictors are the asthma clinical severity score and an assessment of dyspnea. 10 However, others have found them to be of a limited use.…”

“…10 However, others have found them to be of a limited use. 8,22 Common methodological problems in these trials are inclusion of patients with mild exacerbations, multiple observers, lack of blinding of the treating ED physicians for the outcome variable, 8,11,13,17,22 variable length of therapy preceding the discharge assessment, 10 outdated non-intensive therapy, and long ED therapeutic protocols before the disposition decision was made. 2 Furthermore, most studies did not report on whether any patients discharged home required subsequent emergency treatment, or how long hospitalized patients required intensive therapy.…”

A Prospective Multicenter Study of Patient Factors Associated With Hospital Admission From the Emergency Department Among Children With Acute Asthma

“…This decision is traditionally based on a broad constellation of factors; however, there is no consensus on which factors are important. For example, history and physical examination 5,[7][8][9][10] ; response to therapy in terms of respiratory effort or comfort 8,[10][11][12] and more objective measures such as pulse oximetry 9,[12][13][14] and spirometric 9,10,14,15 measurements; quality and availability of outpatient care 16,17 ; extent of asthma understanding by the caretakers 7,18,19 ; ambient air quality and allergen load [20][21][22][23] ; and general socioeconomic factors 24 have all been used by emergency department (ED) and primary care providers. Moreover, the relative contributions of each of these factors in decision making is unclear.…”

Short-Term Outcomes After Acute Treatment of Pediatric Asthma

“…9 -12 The majority of previous studies examining outcomes after acute asthma treatment have limited measures to ED discharge, hospital admission, and relapse (return for unscheduled medical care). [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] To date, the short-term course of the pediatric patient discharged after outpatient treatment for an acute asthma exacerbation has not been comprehensively documented. Because the success or failure of treatment and prevention strategies should be evaluated with respect to the ability of the interventions to improve patient outcomes, the identification and description of these short-term outcomes may assist ongoing efforts to develop more discriminative tools for the critical evaluation of asthma management interventions in randomized clinical trials or in other observational studies.…”