Pattern and Frequency of Respiratory Illnesses at Emergency Department of a Tertiary Care Pediatric Health Facility of Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Respiratory ailments contribute a major chunk of pediatric emergency visits, morbidity and mortality. Knowledge of Burden and pattern of diseases at any setting may help in provision of effective health services. Therefore, this study was conducted to estimate the burden and pattern of respiratory ailments at emergency department of a leading public sector pediatric health facility. Objective: To determine the patterns and frequency of respiratory illnesses among pediatric patients visiting the emergency (ER) department of National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Karachi Pakistan. Study type, settings & duration: The Retrospective observational study was conducted at Emergency Department of National institute of Child health (NICH), Karachi from January to December 2017. Methodology: In this retrospective study, a pre designed questionnaire was used for data collection after the approval from Institutional ethical review board of National Institute of child health, Karachi. Patient’s data was obtained from patients files and was entered on SPSS version 21. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for qualitative variables while mean and standard deviation were calculated for quantitative variables. Results: Total 22364 patients visited the ER of NICH during the study period, 49.7% were males and 50.3% females. Mean age was 7.82 years and mean weight was 18.95 Kgs. Pneumonia was the leading respiratory ailment (37.26%) among the subjects followed by viral Upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) (20.83%) and Bronchiolitis (19.28%). Majority (78%) patients were treated in indoor room, 13% patients were treated in resuscitation room while 9% patients were treated and discharged from outdoor station..........

Keywords

• Emergency room
• pediatric
• respiratory
• ailments
• pneumonia