Heart rates in hospitalized children by age and body temperature.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

Heart rate (HR) is frequently used by clinicians in the hospital to assess a patient's severity of illness and make treatment decisions. We sought to develop percentiles that characterize the relationship of expected HR by age and body temperature in hospitalized children and to compare these percentiles with published references in both primary care and emergency department (ED) settings.

Methods

Vital sign data were extracted from electronic health records of inpatients <18 years of age at 2 large freestanding children's hospitals from July 2011 to June 2012. We selected up to 10 HR-temperature measurement pairs from each admission. Measurements from 60% of patients were used to derive the percentile curves, with the remainder used for validation.

SUBMITTER: Daymont C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4411783 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature