Clinical and epidemiological study of acute respiratory infection cases in children below twelve years of age in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Pune, India

Abstract

Context: Pneumonia is the leading killer of children worldwide. AIMS: To study clinical and epidemiological factors associated with Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) cases and find the case fatality rate. Setting and Design: Hospital-based cross-sectional study. Materials And Methods: Detailed clinical examination of all ARI cases were done in children below 12 years of age. The relevant socio-demographic and epidemiological information of the cases were collected by interviewing the parents/guardians of the children through a pre-tested proforma. Duration of the study was one year. Statistical Analysis Used: χ² test, P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: There were 539 (11.3%) ARI cases from a total of 4,764 admissions. There were 317 males and 222 females. Out of 539 ARI cases, 455 (84.4%) were in the age group of 0-5 years. Malnutrition was associated with 360 (79.1%) of the 455 under-five cases. A total of 283 (62.2%) cases were incompletely immunized for age. Case fatality rate was 3.8% in males and 8.1% in females. Conclusion: Children who were incompletely immunized for age suffered from severe forms of ARI, and this was statistically significant. The case fatality rate was much higher in females, and this was statistically significant. The comorbid factors/illnesses with ARI, which were statistically significantly associated with mortality, were malnutrition, acute diarrheal illness, septicemia, meningitis, and congenital anomaly.