Background
- Globally, pneumonia is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children which affects 151.8 million each year. It leads over 156 million episodes and 14.9 million hospitalizations per year. Besides this fact, the recovery time and predictors of children’s hospitalization related to severe community acquired pneumonia is not well known.
Objective
-The aim of this study was to estimate the median time to recovery and its predictors among severe community acquired pneumonia patients admitted to pediatric ward, Debre Markos Referral Hospital, North West Ethiopia.
Methods
- An institution based retrospective follow up study was employed among 352 records of children who were admitted starting from January 2016 to December, 2018. Patients chart were retrieved using a structured data extraction tool. Data was entered using Epi-Data version 3.02 and analyzed using STATA version 14 statistical software. The Kaplan Meier survival curve and log rank tests were used. Cox proportional hazard model assumption and model fitness were checked. Stratified Cox regression was fitted as a final model. Hazard ratio with its 95% confidence interval was used and P-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant association.
Result-
The overall median recovery time was 4 days IQR (3-7). Recovery rate from severe community acquired pneumonia was 16.25 (95% CI: 14.54–18.15) per 100 person day observation. Age (AHR; 0.94 95% CI (0.90-0.98)), being stunted (AHR; 0.62 95% CI (0.43-0.91)), presence of danger sign at admission (AHR; 0.61 95% CI ((0.40-0.94)), late presentation to seek care (AHR; 0.64 95% CI (0.47-0.88)) and co-morbidity (AHR; 0.45 95% CI ((0.45(0.35-0.58)) were significant predictors of recovery time. Conclusion: The median recovery time from severe community acquired pneumonia was long. Measures to reduce recovery time should be strengthened. Key words:-pediatrics, predictors, severe community acquired pneumonia and time to recovery.