Infants and children hospitalized with acute lower respiratory infections: A prevalence study of hypoxemia

Abstract

Background: Acute respiratory tract infections are the leading preventable cause of disease and death around the world. Most of the deaths happen to children under five in developing countries. Materials and Methods: This study took place in the children's hospital at the Department of Paediatrics, Asram Academy of Medical Sciences, Eluru, Andhra Pradesh, India. From May 2018 to April 2019, the study was done. Following the appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 100 children were asked to take part in this study. Results: An important goal of this study was to find out how common hypoxemia is in kids who have an acute lower respiratory infection. One hundred teens with acute lower respiratory disease who were admitted at the institute were used in this study. The study found a ratio of 1.61 men to women, which means that most of the people who participated were guys. It was found that 52.5% of the children were younger than 12 months, and 47.5% were older than 12 months. People of all ages got coughs, colds, and pneumonia about the same amount of time. However, babies were more likely than older people to get serious and very severe pneumonia. Conclusions: Hypoxemia was strongly linked to stuffy nose, shortness of breath, tachypnea, and not being able to eat or drink.