Time to recovery from sever pneumonia and its predictors among under five children in Arba Minch general hospital. Retrospective follow-up study

Abstract

Background: Severe pneumonia is one of the leading causes of child mortality worldwide and the most common cause in lower income countries including in Ethiopia. Even those children who survived from severe pneumonia may have a long-lasting complication. The time to recovery from severe pneumonia also shows the quality of the service and has economic burden in the health sector. Despite of the different implications of the time to recovery from severe pneumonia there is scarcity of information about it and its contributing factors in Ethiopia in general and specifically in the study area. Objective: the aim of this study was to assess the time to recovery from sever pneumonia and its predictors among under five children in Arba Minch general hospital, 2023. Methods: this is a retrospective follow-up study among 305 children below five years of age in Arba Minch general hospital and data were collected from April 1st to 15th in 2023. A total number of children treated for severe pneumonia from 2018 to 2021 retrieved i.e., 889. Record of each child was checked for its completeness. Record which is incomplete was excluded from the study. For each record a unique code was assigned. Sample were selected using computer generated simple random sampling technique. The data were collected using a data abstraction sheet. The data collection tool is developed from previous studies and it pretested on 30 records before the actual data collection period. Based on the information obtained from pretest necessary modification were made on the tool. The data were collected using kobo toolbox. The collected data were exported to SPSS version 27. Descriptive statistics such as mean, median was reported. Cox proportional hazard regression performed to identify the independent factors associated with the time to recovery from severe community acquired pneumonia. Result: the median time to recovery was 3 days (95% CI: 2.67-3.32). weight less than 5 kg (AHR=0.49, 95%CI (0.28, 0.88)) and the existence of comorbidity during admission (AHR=1.61, 95%CI (1.22, 2.12)) were the predictors for the time to recovery from severe pneumonia. Conclusion: the median time to recovery was short compared to other previous studies in Ethiopia. Weight and presence of comorbidities were the predictors for the time to recovery among children treated for severe pneumonia. It is recommended to give more emphasis on children with comorbidities and less than five kg body weight to shorten the recovery time.