• Colm Hannon, Damian Roland, and Ronan O'Sullivan.
• From the School of Medicine, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
• Pediatr Emerg Care. 2022 Jun 1; 38 (6): e1320e1326e1320-e1326.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of the Irish Paediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS), the Paediatric Observation Priority Score (POPS), and the Irish Children's Triage System (ICTS) to predict patient disposition pathways in an emergency department (ED) setting.MethodsData were prospectively collected on patients aged less than 16 years presenting to an Irish mixed adult/pediatric ED over 3 weeks during December 2018. After calculating a once-off PEWS, POPS, and ICTS, we investigated the ability of the scoring systems to predict admission or discharge from the ED. Primary comparison of the index tests was conducted using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.ResultsA total of 550 patients were included in this study. There were 114 admissions (20.7%) and 436 discharges (79.3%). The POPS had an area under the ROC curve of 0.7 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.65-0.75]. The PEWS had an area under the ROC curve of 0.58 (95% CI, 0.53-0.64). The ICTS had an area under the ROC curve of 0.58 (95% CI, 0.53-0.63).ConclusionsThe POPS has greater accuracy as a predictor of admission from the ED than PEWS and ICTS. Possible future implementation of POPS into pediatric EDs as a cognitive prompt before admission decision seems to be merited. Further multicenter validation in Ireland would be helpful.Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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