Background: Pediatric community-acquired complicated pneumonia (PCACP) is characterized by a prolonged clinical course, but this may be highly variable.
Methods: A multicenter observational study was conducted to develop and validate a clinical prediction tool for prolonged hospitalizations in PCACP. The derivation and validation cohorts consisted of 144 and 169 patients with PCACP, respectively, hospitalized between the years 1997 and 2017 in three tertiary care hospitals.