title: The New York University Pediatric Heart Failure Index: a new method of quantifying chronic heart failure severity in children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The assessment of the severity of heart failure in pediatric patients is handicapped by the subjectivity of diagnostic parameters. This study evaluated the feasibility of a new standardized heart failure index, the New York University Pediatric Heart Failure Index (NYU PHFI), to quantify the degree of heart failure in a selected pediatric population.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The index is a weighted, linear combination of scores based on symptoms, physical signs, and medical regimen. Overall, healthy children (n = 12) scored very low (0 to 2) on this index. Mean scores of children (<2 years; mean age, 4.8 months; n = 12) with a left-to-right shunt lesion declined from 11.4 (SD +/- 4.1, P <.001, 2-tailed test) before surgery to 1.8 (SD +/- 1.3) after surgical correction of their cardiac defects. The average inter-observer correlation coefficient was 0.95 (P <.001), despite a wide range of scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The NYU PHFI appears to be a reliable and convenient instrument for measuring heart failure severity in children. These initial results support further testing in broader diagnostic and age groups and over longer periods.
authors.affiliation: New York University, School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric Cardiology, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Connolly
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rutkowski
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Auslender
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Artman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009518:New York; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index