Consensus Recommendations for Blood Culture Use in Critically Ill Children Using a Modified Delphi Approach.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Blood cultures are fundamental in evaluating for sepsis, but excessive cultures can lead to false-positive results and unnecessary antibiotics. Our objective was to create consensus recommendations focusing on when to safely avoid blood cultures in PICU patients.

Design

A panel of 29 multidisciplinary experts engaged in a two-part modified Delphi process. Round 1 consisted of a literature summary and an electronic survey sent to invited participants. In the survey, participants rated a series of recommendations about when to avoid blood cultures on five-point Likert scale. Consensus was achieved for the recommendation(s) if 75% of respondents chose a score of 4 or 5, and these were included in the final recommendations. Any recommendations that did not meet these

SUBMITTER: Woods-Hill CZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8416691 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature