Hypomagnesaemia in children under five years of age having acute diarrhea.

Objective: To determine the frequency of hypomagnesaemia in children under five year of age having acute diarrhea. Study Design: Descriptive Cross Sectional study. Setting: Department of Pediatric Medicine, Rashid Latif Medical College / Arif Memorial Teaching Hospital, Lahore. Period: August 2019 to January 2020. Material & Methods: A total of 96 children aged between 6 months to five years having acute diarrhea and duration of illness 2 year and weight as 2SD on weight for age chart. Chi square test was applied considering p value < 0.05 as significant. Results: Our study comprised of 96 patients having acute diarrhea, of these 96 study cases, 62 (64.6%) were boys and 34 (35.4%) were girls. Mean age of our study cases was 19.25±15.71 months. Mean weight of study cases was 9.56±3.01 kg. Mean duration of illness was 5.74 ± 3.26 days. Mean Serum Magnesium level was 1.63 ± 0.32 mg/dl (ranging from 1.0 mg/dl to 2.8 mg/dl). Hypomagnesaemia was present in 47 (49%) cases. Conclusion: High frequency of hypomagnesaemia was observed in children under 5 years of age having acute diarrhea. Duration of illness had significant impact on hypomagnesaemia. Serum magnesium levels must be regularly monitored in children with acute diarrhea.