Prevalence of Pneumonia in Patients Hospitalized in the Pediatric Ward of Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Tehran-Iran

Background: Pneumonia in children is known as a common serious disease all over the world. It is one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in children younger than 5 yrs in developing countries. This study was conducted to evaluate the clinical and paraclinical signs and symptoms in children hospitalized in this center due to pneumonia. Materials and methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on children aged 0-15 years who had been hospitalized in the pediatric ward of Masih Daneshvari Hospital during 2000-2005 due to pneumonia. The patients were evaluated in terms of age, sex, body temperature, clinical signs and symptoms, interval between the onset of symptoms and admission, paraclinical findings, hospitalization period and the disease complications. Results: In this study 182 children with pneumonia at the age range of 0-15 years (10% of those who had been hospitalized) had undergone treatment. 48.4% were males and 51.6% were females. The mean age was 4.7 yrs. The most common clinical signs and symptoms were cough (90.1% of cases), fever (63.2% of cases), coryza (21.9% of cases) and respiratory distress (18.2% of cases). Anemia and leukocytosis were detected in 24.2% and 31.3% of cases respectively. Mean ESR was 29.7 and CRP test had been reported positive in medical records of 50% of patients. The most common radiologic findings were pulmonary infiltration (47.2%) and consolidation (28.3%). In 24.5% of cases, pelural effusion and collapse and consolidation were concomitant with infiltration. Right lung, left lung and both lungs were involved in 33.7%, 31.9% and 34.4% of cases respectively. 68% of patients had received antibiotic therapy before the referral/ admission. 4% of patients needed intensive care and no mortality had been reported. Conclusion: Considering the fact that in evaluation of the medical records no data was available regarding the diagnosis of the cause of disease, the results of this study were in accord with most of other researchers' findings and also due to the importance of detecting the cause of disease for specific treatment, performing researches regarding the etiology of disease is necessary