Clinical score to predict the short-term outcome of pediatric status epilepticus
Keywords:
Status epilepticus, STEPSS, OutcomeAbstract
INTRODUCTIONUnlike in adults, clinical scoring system to predict outcome and treatment response in pediatric status epilepticus is lacking. We used a pediatric modification of adult scoring system, Status epilepticus in pediatric patients severity score (STEPSS) to determine if it can accurately predict short term outcome.
MATERIAL AND METHODSIn this prospective study, children aged 1 to 18 years with seizure duration of ≥ 5 minutes or actively convulsing at emergency room were enrolled. STEPSS score was calculated at admission and outcome such as mortality, Pediatric overall performance category (POPC) at discharge and treatment response were noted. The diagnostic utility of STEPSS score to predict unfavorable outcome was calculated.
RESULTSOne hundred and twenty-five children with mean age 5.1 years were enrolled. Seven children died and 29 had unfavorable outcome. The predictive accuracy of STEPSS at cutoff >3 for mortality had sensitivity of 85.3, specificity of 60.2 and negative predictive value of 98.6 with area under curve 0.751 [ 95% CI: 0.593-0.908]). Likewise, it predicted unfavorable outcome with sensitivity of 51.7, specificity of 60.4 and negative predictive value of 80.6.
CONCLUSIONThe STEPSS, a simple bedside clinic score was found to be valuable in predicting outcome and treatment response in children with status epilepticus.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Journal of Universal College of Medical Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors have to give the following undertakings along with their article:
- I/we declare that this article is original and has not been submitted to another journal for publication.
- I/we declare that I/we surrender all the rights to the editor of the journal and if published will be the property of the journal and we will not publish it anywhere else, in full or part, without the permission of the Chief Editor.
- Institutional ethical and research committee clearance certificate from the institution where work/research was done, is required to be submitted.
- Articles in the Journal are Open Access articles published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
- This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and it is not used for commercial purposes.
