Psychiatric Morbidity of Chikungunya among Children in Bangladesh

Abstract

Chikungunya occurred as a major epidemic form in Bangladesh in 2017 after a gap of 6 years. The first outbreak of Chikungunya was identified in Bangladesh in 2008. Another outbreak occurred at Dhaka in 2011. But the current outbreak is huge and effecting almost two third of the population. Methods: This was a retrospective case series study, consisted of 60 children, among which 35 were male and 25 female, ages ranging from 5 to 15 years. Those children were recruited from child health care clinic with a history of two to five days’ high grade fever. All patients recruited were IgM antibody for Chikungunya positive (after 5th day of onset of fever) and on the other hand antibody for Dengue was negative. Two patients were excluded from the study due to Cerebral Palsy and Claustrophobia. Finally 58 patients were assessed. Informed written consent was obtained from all the legal guardians before data collection. Results: All patients presented with a history of two to five days’ high grade fever. The fever was preceded by a maculopapular rash over the trunk and extremities, headache, myalgia and arthralgia. Delirium (non-specified) was most prevalent psychiatric symptoms 45 (77%). Other psychiatric symptoms were Panic Disorder (56%), Phobic Disorder (36%), Neurasthenia or Fatigue syndrome (27%), Hypersomnia (13%) and Claustrophobia (5%). Conclusion: This study suggested that psychiatric morbidity among pediatric Chikungunya patients is very common. Knowledge of the pathogenesis is required to reduce the psychiatric complications and to prevent the morbidity. There is an emergence to invent the prophylactic vaccination, proper and early diagnosis of Chikungunya.