Adding heart rate n-variability (HRnV) to clinical assessment potentially improves prediction of serious bacterial infections in young febrile infants at the emergency department: a prospective observational study

BACKGROUND: We aim to investigate the utility of heart rate variability (HRV) and heart rate n-variability (HRnV) in addition to vital signs and blood biomarkers, among febrile young infants at risk of serious bacterial infections (SBIs). METHODS: We performed a prospective observational study between December 2017 and November 2021 in a tertiary paediatric emergency department (ED). We included febrile infants <90 days old with a temperature ≥38 ℃. We obtained HRV and HRnV parameters via a single lead electrocardiogram. HRV measures beat-to-beat (R-R) oscillation and reflects autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation. HRnV includes overlapping and non-overlapping R-R intervals and provides additional physiological information. We defined SBIs as meningitis, bacteraemia and urinary tract infections (UTIs). We performed area under curve (AUC) analysis to assess predictive performance. RESULTS: We recruited 330 and analysed 312 infants. The median age was 35.5 days (interquartile range 13.0–61.0); 74/312 infants (23.7%) had SBIs with the most common being UTIs (66/72, 91.7%); 2 infants had co-infections. No patients died and 32/312 (10.3%) received fluid resuscitation. Adding HRV and HRnV to demographics and vital signs at ED triage successively improved the AUC from 0.765 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.705–0.825] to 0.776 (95% CI: 0.718–0.835) and 0.807 (95% CI: 0.752–0.861) respectively. The final model including demographics, vital signs, HRV, HRnV and blood biomarkers had an AUC of 0.874 (95% CI: 0.828–0.921). CONCLUSIONS: Addition of HRV and HRnV to current assessment tools improved the prediction of SBIs among febrile infants at ED triage. We intend to validate our findings and translate them into tools for clinical care in the ED.