Accuracy of Clinical Tools for Predicting Serious Bacterial Infection in Young Infants

Predicting which febrile infants have serious bacterial infection (SBI) continues to be a challenge for pediatric emergency clinicians. Evaluations of the accuracy of the predictive Yale Observational Scale (YOS) have included few infants aged <2 months.

The current study is a subanalysis from a large prospective cross-sectional study of infants aged ≤60 days presenting to one of 14 emergency departments during a 4-year period. Researchers assessed the accuracy of both the YOS assigned by the evaluating physician as well as that same physician's unstructured clinical suspicion as to the risk for SBI. Ten percent of the approximately 4600 infants studied had an SBI (87% of which were urinary tract infections).

The YOS did not accurately differ…