Use of age shock index in determining severity of illness in patients presenting to the emergency department with gastrointestinal bleeding

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to make a comparison between classical shock index (SI), modified shock index (MSI), and age shock index (age SI) for predicting critical patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with gastrointestinal bleeding (GIS).

Methods: The study, which was planned retrospectively, consisted of patients diagnosed with GIS bleeding at the ED admission. Triage time vital signs were used to calculate SI, MSI, and age SI. These results were compared with intensive care admission, endoscopic/colonoscopic (E/C) intervention, blood transfusion, and mortality criteria, which we define as adverse outcomes.

Results: The study included 151 patients. Seventy-nine (52.32%) of the patients had at least one adverse outcome. Of the 151 patients, 19 (12.58%) had ICU admission, 27 (17.88%) underwent endoscopic/colonoscopic (E/C) intervention, 68 (45.03%) received a blood transfusion, and 6 (3.97%) died. There was a significant difference between patients who had no adverse outcome and those who had at least one adverse outcome in terms of SI, age SI, and MSI. We performed ROC curve analyses to evaluate the diagnostic performances of all indices for predicting adverse outcomes. AUC (area under the curve) values for age SI was the highest (age SI AUC = 0.711, p < 0.001; SI AUC = 0.616; MSI AUC = 0.617). The performance of the age SI was significantly higher than the SI (p = 0.013) and the MSI (p = 0.024) for predicting adverse outcomes. The cut-off value for the age shock index was 45.12.

Conclusions: In patients with GIS bleeding, age SI, which can be easily calculated in triage, is more significant than SI and MSI for predicting the critical patient.

Keywords: Age shock index; Emergency department; Gastrointestinal bleeding; Modified shock index; Shock index.