Clinical scoring for distinction of bacterial and viral upper respiratory tract infections of children

Abstract

Introduction: Upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) are the most common infections of childhood. The purpose of our study is to develop a clinical scoring method to distinguish viral and bacterial infections in the patients who were diagnosed with URTI. Methods: This study was conducted in pediatric 220 patients with URTI whose ages were between 5 and 15. The previous studies about clinical scoring of bacterial and nonbacterial URTI were reviewed to determine signs and symptoms to evaluate in our study. These signs, symptoms and throat swab culture results of the patients were recorded. Results: Throat swab culture were positive at 93 patients (42%). According to this clinic scoring system; fever, painful anterior servical lymphadenopathy, lack of cough, tonsillar hypertrophy were found to be statistically significant in terms of predicting bacterial infections. Dysphagia, abdominal pain, headache, lack of conjunctivitis, the absence of hoarseness and the absence of diarrhea were found to be statistically insignificant. Conclusion: Acording to total score – culture relationship, total score 7 and higher could be considered significant. As a result of our study, we could not develop an effective scoring due to the high number of parameters, low sensitivity and specifity.

Keywords

• üst solunum yolu enfeksiyonu
• çocuk
• skorlama sistemi
• upper respiratory tract i̇nfections
• scoring system
• children