Validity of PRISM and PIM in Prognosis of Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Patients

The scoring systems are helpful to monitor the PICU performance. One of the most important scoring systems is PRISM-III scoring system. Today PRISM score is used to evaluate the quality and quantity of the performance. The goal of this study was to show the prognosis of the patients admitted to Mofid pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) according to PRISM-III and PIM scoring systems. This study was a prospective descriptive one. Sampling method was sequentional and the sample size was 121 patients whom admitted to Mofid Hospital's PICU between Dec 2005 till May 2006. Results of PRISM-III scoring system were recorded in prepared sheets. Then, information transferred to computer for SPSS analysis. We used several statistical tests such as Chi square, t-test, Correlation and Regression, ANOVA, and Post-Hoc test. Our study showed that 54% of patients were male and 46% were female and the most causes of admission to PICU were respiratory distress and central nervous system diseases, respectively. Sepsis was the main cause of death in PICU. The mortality rate was 33%. The mean PRISM-III score was 7.57 and this score had 80% of sensitivity and 75% of specificity to predict the mortality. According to ROC analysis the PRISM-III score has good predictive value in assessing the probability of mortality in Mofid's PICU and increase in PRISM-III score corresponds to the higher incidence of mortality.