Sociodemographic determinants of outcomes of children presenting to the Children’s Emergency Room of a tertiary health institution in South Western Sahara

Introduction: In the past 4 decades, Under-5 mortality rates have remained high in south Western Sahara despite concerted efforts by healthcare providers. This is in contrast to significant gains made in other parts of the world.

Objectives: To review the sociodemographic characteristics of children presenting to the Children’s Emergency Room (CHER) of Imo State University Teaching Hospital (IMSUTH) with a view in identifying those characteristics that may affect their outcome.

Method: This is a prospective observational study of children presenting to the CHER of Imo State University Teaching Hospital located in Orlu, south west of the Sahara. Children were consecutively recruited over a period of 4 years into the study as they presented to the CHER. Pre-tested questionnaires were filled. Infants 2 months or less in age were excluded from the study. Data analysis was mainly descriptive using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version for Windows. Both discrete and continuous variables were measured. Test for significance was done using Chi square test.

Results: Two thousand six hundred and forty nine children were recruited into the study of whom 234 (8.8%) died, 49 (1.9%) were discharged against medical advice, 47 (1.8%) were referred out, 1265 (47.8%) were transferred out and 1054 (39.8%) were discharged home.

Conclusions: Majority of these children presented late to the emergency paediatric unit, usually after 1 week of illness. Malnutrition, prior treatment at home before presentation by non-doctors, low socioeconomic status and presenting to emergency room at night were significantly associated with poor outcome.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2019; 48(3): 233-239