CORB65 scale for the assessment of community-acquired pneumonia in primary health care

Abstract

Community-acquired pneumonia is a frequent cause of consultation and has a high mortality, which implies that health professionals must have the necessary tools to evaluate and refer promptly. Most of the severity assessment scales for community-acquired pneumonia use laboratory values, which represents a problem for the first level of care where these are usually not available. This study aims to propose the CORB-65 scale (Confusion, Oxygenation, Respiratory Rate, Blood Pressure,
Age over 65 years) as an alternative to the classic scales used, such as Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI), CURB-65 (Confusion, Urea, Respiratory Rate, Blood Pressure, Age over 65 years) and qSOFA (quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment), among others. Documentary research was carried out through a search in databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, in which different studies were compared, showing that the CORB-65 scale maintains similar or higher levels of sensitivity and specificity
than the aforementioned scales and given that it does not require laboratory tests for its scoring, it becomes an ideal alternative for the assessment of community-acquired pneumonia at the first level of care.