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Table 3 Sensitivity and specificity of individual signs, and the 7-sign algorithm for identification of the sick infant requiring hospital admission, for each age group

From: Clinical signs predictive of severe illness in young Pakistani infants

Signs Ages 0–6 days
n = 1633
Ages 7–27 days
n = 817
Ages 28–59 days
n = 500
Sensitivity (95% CI) Specificity (95% CI) Sensitivity (95% CI) Specificity (95% CI) Sensitivity (95% CI) Specificity (95% CI)
History of difficult feeding 26.0 (19.7, 33.0) 97.2 (96.2, 98.0) 24.1 (13.9, 37.2) 96.6 (95.0, 97.8) 15.0 (5.7, 29.8) 93.7 (91.1, 95.7)
Movement only when stimulated 22.2 (17.5, 27.5) 99.7 (99.4, 99.8) 20.7 (11.2, 33.4) 99.6 (98.8, 99.9) 7.3 (1.5, 19.9) 99.8 (98.8, 100.0)
Temperature < 35.5 13.0 (8.5, 18.7) 98.0 (97.1, 98.7) 5.2 (1.1, 14.4) 98.9 (97.9, 99.5) 2.4 (0.1, 12.9) 99.3 (98.1, 99.9)
Temperature ≥ 37.5 24.7 (18.6, 31.7) 90.8 (89.2, 92.3) 27.6 (16.7, 40.9) 96.3 (94.6, 97.5) 12.2 (4.1, 26.2) 96.0 (93.8, 97.6)
Respiratory Rate > 60 51.4 (43.9, 58.8) 81.6 (79.5, 83.5) 46.6 (33.3, 60.1) 92.1 (89.9, 93.9) 56.1 (39.7, 71.5) 92.2 (89.3, 94.4)
Severe chest indrawing 12.4 (8.0, 18.1) 99.7 (99.2, 99.9) 24.1 (13.9, 37.2) 100.0 (99.5, 100.0) 39.0 (24.2, 55.5) 97.6 (95.8, 98.8)
History of convulsions 9.7 (5.9, 14.9) 99.5 (99.0, 99.8) 1.7 (0.0, 9.2) 98.7 (97.6, 99.4) 9.8 (2.7, 23.1) 98.5 (96.9, 99.4)
7-sign algorithm 85.9 (80.1, 90.6) 71.6 (69.2, 74.0) 72.4 (59.1, 83.3) 83.1 (80.3, 85.7) 80.5 (65.1, 91.2) 80.2 (76.2, 83.7)