Comparison of 7th Day All-Cause Mortality Among HDU Patients With Modified Early Warning Score of ≥ 5 With Those With Score of < 5

Early recognition and immediate resuscitation are fundamentals of successful management of all critically ill patients if they are suffering from infection and sepsis, malnutrition, AIDS, trauma, diabetes mellitus, drug overdose, and poisoning. In most, seriously ill patients, initial diagnosis may not be clear and immediate objective is to save the life and reverse or prevent vital organ damage e.g. brain, lungs, liver and kidneys. A rapid identifying, low cost method called as Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) that utilize easy to measure physiological parameters such as vital signs and level of consciousness can be used to identify critical illness, facilitate early intervention and predict mortality. MEWS values range from 0 to maximum 14, higher scores mean greater hemodynamic instability. A score of 5 or more identifies a patient to be critically ill and is associated with increased risk of ICU admission and death. The negative predictive value of early warning MEWS < 3 was 98.1%, indicating the reliability of this score as a screening tool MEWS (modified early warning score) is a reliable screening tool to identify critically ill patients early and to act timely to improve outcomes in health care and prevent adverse events like cardiac arrest, renal failure. A study performed in Uganda on sepsis patients demonstrated that early IV fluid and antibiotic therapy together with vital sign monitoring was associated with lowered 30-day mortality.

Rationale: Early categorization of critically ill patients by calculating MEWS score in hospitals may give a time window for appropriate steps. If a patient is suffering from sepsis, timely intravenous fluids, early antibiotics and monitoring in a low resource country like Pakistan, may have a great impact. Therefore, the current research is planned to early identify critically ill patients by applying MEWS and reducing the mortality by providing early management and taking appropriate life saving measures.