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Table 3 Sensitivity, Specificity, and Positive (PPV) and Negative Predictive Values (NPV) for severe sepsis by different identification tools in the Emergency department (n = 108 cases of severe sepsis among 1535 patients)

From: Poor performance of quick-SOFA (qSOFA) score in predicting severe sepsis and mortality – a prospective study of patients admitted with infection to the emergency department

Identification tool

Ability to identify severe sepsis

Sensitivity

Specificity

PPV

NPV

n (% of 108 cases)

(95% CI)

(95% CI)

(95% CI)

(95% CI)

SIRS ≥2 (without leukocytes)

80 (74.1%)

0.74 (0.65-0.82)

0.72 (0.70-0.75)

0.18 (0.16-0.19)

0.97 (0.96-0.98)

qSOFA ≥2a

33 (30.6%)

0.32 (0.23-0.42)

0.98 (0.97-0.99)

0.57 (0.45-0.68)

0.95 (0.94-0.96)

Red triage

37 (34.3%)

0.34 (0.25-0.44)

0.95 (0.94-0.96)

0.35 (0.27-0.43)

0.95 (0.94-0.95)

Orange triage

55 (50.9%)

0.51 (0.41-0.61)

0.60 (0.58-0.63)

0.09 (0.07-0.11)

0.94 (0.93-0.95)

≥ Orange triage

92 (85.2%)

0.85 (0.77-0.91)

0.55 (0.52-0.58)

0.13 (0.12-0.14)

0.98 (0.97-0.99)

  1. aThe ability to identify sepsis in % is calculated based on 108 cases of sepsis in the total population, whilst the sensitivity analysis is based on the 103 cases with complete score on qSOFA