Research Journal of Medical Sciences
ISSN: Online 1993-6095ISSN: Print 1815-9346
Abstract
In our study, 171 children in the age group of 6 months to 5 years with respiratory symptoms were included. The accuracy of presence of chest in drawing in the prediction of pneumonia is 90.7%, the accuracy of persistence of tachypnea following bronchodilator therapy in predicting pneumonia is 80% and that of presence of fever in predicting pneumonia is 75%.The combined presence of chest in drawing and persistent tachypnea in a child had an accuracy of 88.29% in clinically predicting pneumonia. The presence of fever along with persistent tachypnea was 80% accurate in the prediction of pneumonia. The presence of all the 3 symptoms i.e, fever along with chest indrawing and persistent tachypnea in a child had an excellent specificity of 9 5.4% and a highly significant accuracy of 90.7% in the clinical prediction of pneumonia. Reduction in tachypnea following the administration of a bronchodilator had a good negative predictive value of 83.6% in the prediction of presence of pulmonary infiltrates on the chest X‐ray. After exclusion of asthmatics, the specificity of chest in drawing in the prediction of pulmonary infiltrates increased from 90‐91.6%, specificity of tachypnea increased from 85.5‐86.8% and the specificity of fever increased from 72.4‐80%. The combined presence of fever, persistent tachypnea and chest in drawing showed an excellent specificity of 97.2% and a high positive predictive value of 97.4% in clinically diagnosing pneumonia.
How to cite this article:
G. Venugopal Raju and Shaik Jareena. Study of Simple Predictors to Differentiate Acute Respiratory Tract Infections From Acute Asthma in Children Aged 6 Months to 5 Years.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36478/10.36478/makrjms.2020.239.243
URL: https://www.makhillpublications.co/view-article/1815-9346/10.36478/makrjms.2020.239.243