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

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)

Identification tool	Ability to identify severe sepsis	Sensitivity	Specificity	PPV	NPV
Identification tool	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 ≥2^a	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)

^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