Positivity of Lumbar Puncture for Acute Bacterial Meningitis among Children Presenting with First Febrile Seizure

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To determine the frequency of lumber puncture-proven acute bacterial meningitis among children with fever and seizures of first onset. METHODOLOGY From March 2020 to March 2021, a hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the paediatrics department of Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar. The sample size for a total of 342 people was estimated using WHO software. The study included all children who had first-onset febrile seizures through OPD and the emergency department. All children underwent lumber punctures using a stringent aseptic procedure, and the hospital laboratory received the samples to look for bacterial meningitis. On a pre-made Proforma, details including name, age, and gender were entered. The gathered data were input into the computer for additional SPSS analysis (version 23). RESULTS Most individuals were male and were lies in the 21-40 months of age group. Mean weight and length/height were evaluated, respectively. The majority had a history of 6-10 days of disease duration. Bacterial meningitis was found significantly (p0.05) associated with the duration of diseases. CONCLUSION All children between the ages of 6 months and 60 months who presented with episodes of fever and seizures were found to have a statistically significant (p<0.05) association found among bacterial meningitis and age groups.

Keywords

• Fever
• Seizures
• Lumber puncture
• meningitis