Objective: Although the majority of patients diagnosed with acute bronchiolitis experience a mild and self-limiting clinical progression, others may develop more severe symptoms necessitating oxygen therapy and even hospitalization. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between the Modified Tal (M-Tal) scores and the Bronchiolitis Score of Sant Joan de Deu (BROSJOD) with the disease’s severity, the requirement for oxygen during treatment, and the duration of hospitalization.
Materials and
Methods: Infants aged between 1 and 24 months who visited the Pediatrics Clinic and received a first-time diagnosis of bronchiolitis were included in the study. M-Tal and BROSJOD scores were determined according to the patients’ findings, and the scores and treatment characteristics were compared.

Results: Average age of 111 patients who fit criteria of the study was 10.4±6.4 (1.5–24.0) months and 70 (63.1%) were male. The mean M-Tal score of the patients was 4.68±2.17 (1–10) and the mean BROSJOD score was 6.91±2.68 (2–15). High-flow nasal oxygen therapy (HFNC) was applied to 22 patients who did not respond to conventional oxygen therapy. The median M-Tal score of patients who underwent HFNC was 7.5, while the median of the BROSJOD score was 10 in those who underwent HFNC and 6 in those who did not (p=0.001). A positive correlation was found between length of hospital stay and M-Tal score and BROSJOD Score (r=0.532, p<0.001: r=0.477, p<0.001, respectively).

Conclusion: Several scoring systems exist to assess the severity of bronchiolitis and determine the need for hospitalization. While these scores are generally useful in studies, none have been consistently proven to be superior in all aspects. Our study’s findings align with other bronchiolitis severity scores reported in the literature. However, a different study demonstrated a significant relationship between blood gas parameters and the Modified Wood’s Clinical Asthma Score (M-WCAS), a relationship that we did not observe in our study. This discrepancy may be attributed to the early presentation of patients, where elevated scores were detected before changes in blood gas parameters became evident. In conclusion, clinical scoring systems may serve as valuable tools for assessing the severity of bronchiolitis in young children and predicting the potential need for intensive care.