Quick-SOFA score to predict mortality among geriatric patients with influenza in the emergency department

The quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA) score is widely used to assess the risk of sepsis and predict in-hospital mortality in patients with suspected infection. However, its ability to predict mortality among geriatric patients with influenza in the emergency department (ED) remains unclear. Therefore, this study was conducted to delineate this issue. A retrospective case–control study was conducted on geriatric patients (age ≥65 years) with influenza who visited the ED of a medical center between January 01, 2010, and December 31, 2015. Demographic data, vital signs, past histories, influenza subtypes, and treatment outcomes were included in the analysis. We assessed the accuracy of the qSOFA score in predicting 30-day mortality via logistic regression. Covariate adjustment of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) via regression modeling was performed too. In total, 409 geriatric ED patients with mean age of 79.5 years and nearly equal sex ratio were recruited. The mean qSOFA score was 0.55 ± 0.7. The Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test was 0.79 for qSOFA score. Patients with qSOFA score of ≥2 (odds ratio, 4.21; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.56–11.40) had increased in-hospital mortality. qSOFA score of ≥2 also had excellent in-hospital mortality discrimination with an adjusted AUROC of 0.81 (95% CI, 0.71–0.90). A qSOFA of ≥2 had prominent specificity of 0.89 (95% CI, 0.86–0.92). An increase in qSOFA score of 2 greatly predicts mortality in geriatric patients with influenza.