Summary
Inventors from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh have developed and validated a symptom severity scale for children with acute otitis media.Description
The AOM-SOS (version 1.0) asks about the frequency or severity of 7 symptoms. A 3-point Likert scale (none, a little, a lot) was used for 6 of the symptoms: ear pain, ear tugging, irritability, decreased play, eating less. To measure fever, we asked parents for the maximum recorded temperature. This value was converted to a 3 point scale. Children with no documented temperature were assigned a score of zero, those with a temperature between 100.4 -102.5 were assigned a score of 1, and those with a temperature > 102.5 were assigned a score of 2. The AOM-SOS total score was obtained by adding scores on 7 equally weighted questions. The scale score ranges from 0 to 14. A total score was calculated only if > 4 items were completed. For analysis of questionnaire data, only completed items were used. The AOM-SOS was piloted in 19 children with AOM. Parents were interviewed regarding difficulties reading or understanding the questionnaire. Minor issues were raised regarding the wording of some questions which were revised. The average time to completion of the questionnaire was 2 minutes.