A descriptive hospital based study of rotavirus diarrhoea in children aged 6 months to 3 years
Abstract
Objective: To study the prevalence, demographic characteristics, clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and therapy of rotavirus diarrhoea in children aged 6 months to 3 years in a hospital setting
Method: A prospective hospital based cross-sectional study was carried out in Sri Guru Ramdas Institute of Medical Sciences and Research on 50 consecutive children aged 6 month to 3 years with diarrhoea from December 2011 to June 2013. Stool samples were collected and rotavirus antigen detection was done by the Enzyme Immunoassay method. Stool microscopy and culture were done to find out bacterial and other causes for diarrhoea. Data so obtained was statistically analysed.
Results: Out of 50 patients 22 tested positive for rotavirus by FAR diagnostic rotavirus card ELISA test. Prevalence of rotavirus diarrhoea in our study was 44%. Rotavirus diarrhoea was found most commonly in 6-12 months age group and in the months of October to December. Most of the patients presented with some dehydration.
Conclusions: Prevalence of rotavirus diarrhoea in our hospital based study was 44%. The consistency of stools was watery in a significant number of rotavirus diarrhoea patients compared to non-rotavirus patients (p<0.05). A significant number of cases with rotavirus diarrhoea had some dehydration compared to non-rotavirus patients (p<0.05).
(Key words: Rotavirus; prevalence; dehydration)
Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2014; 43(4): 219-223
© 2014 Gursharan Singh, Gagan Deep Singh, Sunita Arora, Gurmeet Singh, Aruna Aggarwal, published by Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.