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Investigators prospectively assessed the usefulness of two pediatric asthma assessment tools — the Preschool Respiratory Assessment Measure (PRAM) and the Pediatric Asthma Severity Score (PASS) — for predicting prolonged (≥6 hours) emergency department (ED) stay and hospital admission in a convenience sample of patients aged 18 months to 7 years with asthma exacerbations. During an 18-month period at an academic pediatric ED, one of six respiratory therapists assessed each of 283 patients on arrival and at 90 minutes.
Forty-three discharged patients and 12 admitted patients had ED stays ≥6 hours, and 204 discharged patients and 24 admitted patients had ED stays <6 hours. For the primary outcome (prolonged ED stay or hospital admission), init…