Intensive Care Unit Scoring Systems

Illness severity scoring systems are commonly used in critical care. When applied to the populations for whom they were developed and validated, these tools can facilitate mortality prediction and risk stratification, optimize resource use, and improve patient outcomes.

To describe the characteristics and applications of the scoring systems most frequently applied to critically ill patients.

A literature search was performed using MEDLINE to identify original articles on intensive care unit scoring systems published in the English language from 1980 to 2020. Search terms associated with critical care scoring systems were used alone or in combination to find relevant publications.

Two types of scoring systems are most frequently applied to critically ill patients: those that predict risk of in-hospital mortality at the time of intensive care unit admission (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation, Simplified Acute Physiology Score, and Mortality Probability Models) and those that assess and characterize current degree of organ dysfunction (Multiple Organ Dysfunction Score, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, and Logistic Organ Dysfunction System). This article details these systems’ differing features and timing of use, score calculation, patient populations, and comparative performance data.

Critical care nurses must be aware of the strengths, limitations, and specific characteristics of severity scoring systems commonly used in intensive care unit patients to effectively employ these tools in clinical practice and critically appraise research findings based on their use.