Vol. 6, Issue 2, Part A (2024)

Introduction: Dengue fever is the most prevalent human arboviral infection and a major public health issue in the tropics. With monsoon epidemics overwhelming our hospitals, it is crucial to identify the risk factors for severe dengue. By assessing the validity of such predictors, operational solutions can be established, thereby, reducing the burden on the health care system. We, herein, report the development and validation of a bedside dengue severity score in children less than 18 years, for prediction of severe dengue disease.
Objective: To develop and validate a bedside dengue severity score in children less than 18 years for predicting severe dengue disease.
Methodology: We carried out an analysis of data on the clinical and laboratory parameters of patients with confirmed dengue, hospitalized in September, 2023 at our centre. Fourteen risk factors for severe dengue were taken from the National guidelines on dengue to develop the severity score. Predictive models for severity were built using a forward step-wise method.
Three variables namely narrow pulse pressure, mucosal bleed, third space fluid loss were found to be significant and considered for scoring. This model was validated on the data of 50 children with dengue admitted during August-September, 2023.
Results: Severe dengue was predicted by dengue severity score with a sensitivity of 84.75%, specificity of 97.25%
Positive predictive value of 96.34% and a negative predictive value of 93.54%
The overall predictive accuracy was 94.6%.
Conclusion: The proposed bedside dengue severity scoring system was found to have good validity. Validating the score in different settings and patient populations is suggested.