FREQUENCY OF ANEMIA IN CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM PNEUMONIA AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Abstract

Objective; To determine the frequency of anemia among hospitalized children suffering from pneumonia in a tertiary care hospital.  Material and Methods; Consecutive 145 children were taken in this cross-sectional study from March 2016 to February 2017 from OPD of Nishtar Hospital, Multan, Pakistan. History regarding fever, coughing and tachypnea was taken. Once registered in the study, all the relevant baseline investigations were done including blood tests and chest X-Ray. Venous blood sample (3ml) was drawn and sent to laboratory in EDTA vial for Hb level estimation to determine anemia and all the data was entered and analyzed using SPSS-20. Results; Of these 145 study cases, 75 (51.7%) were boys while 70 (48.3%) were girls. Mean age of our study cases was 5.82 ± 2.51 years (with minimum age was 2 years while maximum age was 10 years). Most of our study cases i.e. 75 (51.7%) presented with hospital acquired pneumonia while 70 (48.3%) presented with community acquired pneumonia. Majority of our study cases i.e. 92 (63.4%) were from urban areas and were having poor social background i.e. 98 (67.6%).Mean hemoglobin level of our study cases was noted to be 9.70 ± 1.89 g/dl (with minimum Hb level was 6.5 g/dl while maximum Hb level was 12.6 g/dl). Anemia was present in 91 (62.8%) of our study cases. Conclusion; Very high frequency of anemia is noted in children with pneumonia in our study. Anemia was significantly associated with female gender, hospital acquired pneumonia, mother’s educational level, increasing disease duration and poor socio-economic status. Anemia is generally neglected while treating pediatric pneumonia so pediatricians must check hemoglobin levels on routine basis among this targeted population.

Keywords; Pneumonia, anemia, frequency.