Prevalence Of ENT Diseases In Children: Hospital Based Study

Abstract

Background: Nepal is a landlocked and developing country with 34.6% children under 14 years of ageas well a big population under the line of poverty. Socioeconomic status, family type, overcrowding and provision of health care facilities act as risk factors for ENT disorders. There is a lack of data on pediatric ENT disorders from various Nepalese populations. This study was undertaken to determine the hospital prevalence of ENT disorders in pediatric population and their relationship with sociodemographic factors.Objectives:This study was undertaken to determine the hospital prevalence of ENT disorders in pediatric population and their relationship with socio-demographic factors in a tertiary care hospital in Nepal.Methods: This is a prospective analytic study, conducted at Department of ENT, Head & Neck Surgery between January 2010 and December 2010 in the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Department, Gandaki Medical College Charak Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal. All patients aged 16 years or younger presented ear diseases to the ENT clinic of the hospital seen by ENT surgeons were enrolled into the study.Results: Among 1632 children, ENT diseases were found to be more common among male children (60%). The male to female ratio is 1.5:1. Most of the children were living in joint family (64.16%). Diseases of auditory system (57.84%) were the most common group of ENT problems among the pediatric population, followed by pharyngo-esophageal (23.53%) and nasal disorders (18.63%). Most common otologic disorder was ear wax (40.9%). Among problems associated with nose, rhinitis (23.4%) was most common. Pharyngitis was troubling (44.8%) of our study population.Conclusion:Improvement of health education, socioeconomic status and health facilities will be helpful in reducing the prevalence of ENT diseases. A study on the prevalence of the Ear Nose throat and Head and Neck diseases in developing country like Nepal can provide basic data which can be relevant and beneficial to the development of medical ENT curriculum in the regional setup and subsequent medical practice.