The value and validity of disease severity scores
Abstract
For those involved in neonatal care the concept of risk adjustment, in the informal sense, is part of every day life. We regularly talk to parents about the risk of death in their baby if he or she is born at a particular gestation. Similarly we are aware that the risk of death as we perceive it can be weighted by other events such as being born with particularly low Apgar scores. The disease severity scoring systems that exist in neonatal care have developed through a process that formalises the assessment of the risks attached to a particular baby. Archives of Disease in Childhood has published previously a review of how such scores are derived with a commentary on some of the most widely used systems[1].
