Behavior of pneumonia in the pediatric ward of KHMH in Belize. September – December 2012

Abstract

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children under 5 years in the world. We carried out a descriptive, longitudinal, retrospective study to determine the behavior of pneumonia in the pediatric ward of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) in the period of September to December 2012. The study group consisted of all patients admitted to this ward in the aforementioned period with nonsurgical criterion. The 157 patients diagnosed with pneumonia were used as sample. Once the sample was defined, the clinical records of all patients were reviewed. The variables used were sex, age, symptoms, type of feeding and morbidity. Absolute numbers and percentages served as summary measurements of the different variables. The results were tabulated, showing that the largest number of cases occurred at ages from 1 to 4 years, with male sex predominance. Fever in over half of the cases and nasal congestion were among the most common symptoms. The type of nursing most used in these children was early artificial, and pneumonia had the highest morbidity impact among them.