Table 5.

Comparison of antibiotic use (A) and “rule out sepsis” evaluations (B) as per SCO vs. recommendations of the NSC among late-preterm infants.

		NSC
		No antibiotics	Antibiotics	Total (% of preterm infants)
(A) Comparison of antibiotic use
SCO	No antibiotics	130	33	163 (91.6%)
	Antibiotics	0	15	15 (8.4%)
	Total (% of preterm infants)	130 (73.0%)	48 (27.0%)	178 (100%)
		NSC
		No test	Rule out sepsis	Total (% of preterm infants)
(B) Comparison of “rule out sepsis” evaluations
SCO	Not evaluated	127	18	145 (81.5%)
	Rule out sepsis	1	32	33 (18.5%)
	Total (% of preterm infants)	128 (71.9%)	50 (28.1%)	178 (100%)

NSC, neonatal sepsis calculator; SCO, serial clinical observation.

Differences between proportions were analyzed using McNemar's test.