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Risk factors for deaths in under‐age‐five children attending a diarrhoea treatment centre
Author(s) -
Teka T,
Faruque ASG,
Fuchs GJ
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1996.tb14219.x
Subject(s) - medicine , breastfeeding , malnutrition , measles , pediatrics , diarrhea , odds ratio , confidence interval , under five , univariate analysis , breast feeding , severe acute malnutrition , multivariate analysis , vaccination , immunology
Few case‐control studies have examined possible risk factors for diarrhoeal deaths in under‐age‐five children in the developing countries. We analysed data from the surveillance system of our diarrhoea treatment centre/hospital for the period 1990‐94 on 928 children less than 5 years of age. In univariate analysis, 11 factors were significantly associated with death: lack of breastfeeding, severe malnutrition, complicated diarrhoea, pneumonia, xerophthalmia, duration of diarrhoea 7‐14 days, moderate or severe dehydration, recent history of measles, Shigella flexneri infection, maternal illiteracy, and very low household income. Rotavirus diarrhoea was negatively associated with fatal outcome. In the assessment of severe malnutrition, weight‐for‐height measurement discriminated mortality risk better than weight‐for‐age or height‐for‐age indices. Only two factors retained their significance, severe malnutrition and non‐breastfeeding in the multivariate analysis with adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 84.2 (9.1, 775.9) and 4.2 (1.3, 13.2) respectively.