Evaluation of epidemiologic, clinical and laboratory factors of hospitalized children with pneumonia

Introduction: Pneumonia is one of the major causes of mortality in acute respiratory infections of children. Most of death cases due to pneumonia among children, occurred several days after clinical manifestation which is due to delay of remedy or indiscrimination. Our aim, in this study, is evaluation of epidemiologic, clinical and laboratory factors of hospitalized children with pneumonia. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we evaluated all hospitalized patients with diagnosis of pneumonia, aged 1 month to 12 years in pediatrics ward of Ali ebn-e Abitaleb (AS) Hospital of Zahedan, Iran, during 2005 to 2008. The diagnosis of pneumonia was based on physical examination, laboratory findings and chest radiography. Analysis was done by SPSS ver.15 software. Results: Of 300 evaluated patients, 177 patients (59%) were male and 123(41%) were female. The mean age was 27.39 month. Age in boys was less than girls, but the mean age of boys have no significant difference with girls. Rate of Bacterial pneumonia was 30% and viral was 70%. The blood culture was positive in 11.11% of the cases. The most common bacteria were negative coagolase staphylococcus (8 cases) and streptococcus pneumonia (5 cases). The most common underlying conditions were failure to thrive (FTT) and congenital heart disease (CHD). The mortality rate of pneumonia in this study was 1%. Conclusion: Based on the results of our study, the most common pathogen of pneumonia in children was staphylococcus and streptococcus pneumonia. High frequency of FTT in our study can be due to low socio-economic status of families and inattention to contraceptive methods.