Identifying severe community-acquired pneumonia in the emergency department: A simple clinical prediction tool

Abstract

Objective: To identify independent predictors of severe pneumonia in a local population, and create a simple severity score that would be useful in the ED. Methods: Data on the clinical features of patients presenting to hospital with community-acquired pneumonia were collected. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify independent predictors of death, requirement for ventilatory or inotropic support, and these combined. These predictors were used to modify an existing severity score, and its performance was tested in a second cohort of patients. Results: A total of 392 patients in the derivation, and 330 in the validation cohorts. Independent predictors of 'death and/or requirem..