Pattern and Outcome of Paediatric Surgical Admissions in a New Tertiary Hospital in Northwestern Nigeria

Kache Stephen Akau

doi:10.11648/j.js.20170505.13

Abstract

The pattern and outcome of pediatric surgical admissions may be crucial to policy formulation in a new tertiary hospital. This study reports the pattern and outcome of pediatric surgical admissions in Northwestern Nigeria. This is a retrospective review of all medical records of patients admitted with pediatric surgical pathologies over a 14 months period. Data was extracted from the admission records and case notes of children admitted in the hospital during the study period. Information obtained included the patients’ age, sex, diagnosis, duration of admission and outcome. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0 for Windows. There were 191 pediatric surgical admissions representing 12.5% of the total pediatric admissions with a mean age of 71 months and a male to female ratio of 1.2:1 (M 105: F86). Sixty percent of the patients were admitted to female surgical ward, others were admitted to neonatal intensive care unit, male surgical ward, pediatric medical ward and emergency pediatric unit due to shortage of manpower and lack of pediatric surgical facilities. The most common diagnostic categories were congenital anomalies 35.1% (67/191), trauma 30.9% (59/191) and surgical infections 29.8% (57/191). Eighty percent of our patients did well and were discharged. However, we recorded a mortality rate of 9.9%. Our report shows that wide spectrums of pediatric surgical conditions are seen in our hospital with congenital anomalies being the most common. Most of our patients were treated and discharged.

Highlights

Hospital admission data can be a useful tool for assessing the pattern of diseases within a population. [1, 2] With very little amount of data collection, a meaningful insight can be gained into the epidemiology of diseases especially in low resource settings like Nigeria
This study reports the spectrum of pediatric surgical diseases requiring hospital admission and the outcome in a
Pediatric surgical admissions represented 12.5% of total pediatric admissions in this study; this is slightly higher than the 10.4% and 11.3% reported in Ethiopia and the Gambia respectively but lower than the 15.5% reported in western Nigeria. [1], [3], [6]

Summary

Introduction

Hospital admission data can be a useful tool for assessing the pattern of diseases within a population. [1, 2] With very little amount of data collection, a meaningful insight can be gained into the epidemiology of diseases especially in low resource settings like Nigeria. [1] Data on epidemiology of pediatric surgical diseases will be invaluable in the immediate and long term health care planning. [1] Data on epidemiology of pediatric surgical diseases will be invaluable in the immediate and long term health care planning. Hospital admission data can be a useful tool for assessing the pattern of diseases within a population. This will give room for adequate budgetary provision to meet specific needs of this group of patients. Within the last two decades more data on epidemiology of childhood surgical admission in Africa has become available [1,2,3,4] In Nigeria most of the studies on pattern of pediatric surgical admissions were done in the southern part of the country.

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion