Fever under 3 months and the full septic screen: Time to think again? A retrospective cohort study at a tertiary-level paediatric hospital.

Aim: To assess adherence to the Iocal guideline (LG) for the management of fever in infants under 3 months and whether the application of a risk-stratified protocol (RSP) to this population would miss any serious bacterial infections (SBI) compared to current practice (CP) and LG.

Methods: All presentations to the authors' Emergency Department of infants 0-3 months with fever from 1 July 2015 to 28 April 2016 were included (n = 219), along with a detailed analysis of CP. The initial history, examination and pathology results were applied to the LG and RSP to assess what changes in management would occur.