Acute myocarditis is an uncommon and potentially life-threatening disease. Scoring systems are essential for predicting outcome and evaluating the therapy effect of adult patients with acute myocarditis. The aim of this study was to determine the value of the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation IV (APACHE IV) and second Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS II) scoring systems in predicting short-term mortality of these patients. We retrospectively analyzed data from 305 adult patients suffering from acute myocarditis between April 2005 and August 2016. The association between the value of admission SOFA, APACHE IV and SAPS II scores and risk of short-term mortality was determined. Multivariate Cox analysis showed that SOFA, APACHE IV and SAPS II scores were independent risk factors of death in patients with acute myocarditis. For each scoring system, Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the cumulative short-term mortality was significantly higher in patients with higher admission scores compared with those with lower admission scores. For the prediction of short-term mortality in a patient with acute myocarditis, SAPS II had the highest accuracy followed by the APACHE IV and SOFA scores.