Acute abdomen in children is a condition that causes great distress to parents, and appendicitis is its most common cause, being more frequent at school age. This pathology is the cause of numerous visits to public and private hospitals around the world, and brings several complications. It is important that the health team is aware of the possibility of appendicitis in children, due to its high incidence and difficulty in establishing its diagnosis, because the symptoms are nonspecific and there are different clinical presentations. Objective: to explain the importance of the Alvarado criterion for the diagnosis of acute childhood appendicitis. Methodology: This is an integrative bibliographic review, in articles published in the PubMed, Virtual Health Library and Google Scholar databases. For the search for data, the descriptors “Acute abdomen”, “Appendicitis”, “Children” and the keyword “Alvarado score” were used. Data were collected in December 2020. Results: 16 articles were selected as the final sample for analysis of the review, six in English, nine in Portuguese and one in Spanish. Conclusion: Through this review it can be concluded that the use of the Alvarado Score for the diagnosis of acute appendicitis in children is useful and effective, avoiding the use of imaging tests in patients with a score above 7 on this scale
