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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Acad Emerg Med. 2015 Sep 9;22(10):E25–E26. doi: 10.1111/acem.12760

AAIRS Score Overview: The Acute Asthma Intensity Research Score

Donald H Arnold 1, Kathleen T Berg 1, Michael G O’Connor 1, Richard D Lescallette 1, Lawrence B Stack 1
PMCID: PMC4598278  NIHMSID: NIHMS714081  PMID: 26352797

Pediatric acute asthma exacerbations are responsible for 640,000 emergency department (ED) visits each year and are the most frequent reason for childhood hospitalization in the United States.1 Expert panel guidelines recommend that treatment and hospitalization decisions be made based on assessment of severity and response to treatment. However, these guidelines specify severity assessment that includes spirometry for peak expiratory flow measurement (FEV1), measures that are generally unavailable or difficult for pediatric patients to perform during exacerbations.2–4 The Acute Asthma Intensity Research Score (AAIRS) is a 17-point (0 to 16, with 16 most severe) bedside severity score that uses readily evaluated physical signs (Figure 1) and that has been validated against the criterion standard %-predicted FEV1.5, 6 We are not aware of training videos published in the peer-review literature for acute asthma severity scores. The accompanying video follows the course of a young child with a moderately severe asthma exacerbation over several hours of ED care to demonstrate the seven physical signs comprising the AAIRS and how they are to be evaluated for AAIRS scoring. The protocol under which the AAIRS was developed was approved by our institutional review board, and development of the training video was a quality improvement initiative requested by our clinical leadership.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

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The Acute Asthma Intensity Research Score (AAIRS)

Acknowledgments

Disclosures: Funding for development of the AAIRS was provided by the National Institutes of Health, K23 HL80005.

Footnotes

Video available at: Link to submission: https://vimeo.com/122443037 (click “AAIRS Scoring System”)

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