Abstract

Dr. Hafiza Ramisha Ashraf, Dr. Sajjad Hussain Moon* and Dr. Mohammad Faisal Hameed

ABSTRACT

Objective: To determine the frequency of encephalopathy in children with enteric fever presenting at a tertiary care hospital. Patients and methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at Department of Pediatric Medicine Nishtar Hospital Multan from January 2016 to December 2016. A total of 100 patients with enteric fever were recruited in our study. Results: Of these 95 study cases, 55 (57.8%) were boys and 40 (42.1%) were girls. Mean age of our study cases was 8.99 ± 3.2 years. Majority of the study cases with enteric fever i.e. 50(52.63%) were age more than 7 years. Mean Temperature was 102.30 ± 0.45 F0. Mean disease duration (enteric fever) was 5.1 ± 2.18 days (with minimum disease duration was 5 days while maximum duration of fever was 8 days). Of these 95 study cases, 53 (55.8%) belonged to the rural areas and 42 (44.2%) were from urban territories. While majority of these children belonged to the families having poor socio-economic status 64 (67%), middle income socio-economic status was reported by 27 (28.4%) and 04 (6.1%) were from higher socio-economic status. Encephalopathy was seen in 20 (21%) of our study cases. Conclusion: Our study results have showed that frequency of encephalopathy is high among children hospitalized because of typhoid fever. Majority of our study cases belonged to poor socio-economic status families living in dirty areas where they have poor sanitation facilities. Encephalopathy was significantly associated with disease duration, increasing age in male gender and lower age groups in female gender.