Abstract:
Abstract
This study was designed to assess the prevalence and factors associated with poor clinical outcome of acute respiratory
infections (ARIs) among children less than five years of age at Mizan-Tepi university teaching public hospital in southwest
district of Ethiopia. A prospective observational cohort study design was conducted from 01 June to August 30, 2020. Data
related to socio-demographics, child nutritional status, clinical and environmental characteristics of patients were collected
with structured questionnaire. Follow-up data were gathered from patient’s medical records using standard data collection
tool. The data were analyzed using SPSS versions 25.0. In this study, 305 children of age less than five years were included. Of
these, 124 (40.7%) of children were diagnosed with ARIs, of which 66 (53.2%) were female and 69 (55.6%) were age of 24–59
months. Of children diagnosed with ARIs, 21 (16.9%) were ended with poor clinical outcomes after completion of their
treatment. In the multivariate analysis, age of children and presence of any other disease conditions (OR = 0.331; 95% CI:
0.123– 0.880; p= 0.024), exposure to indoor air pollution (OR = 0.344; 95% CI: 0.128– 0.925; p= 0.030), malnutrition (OR =
0.175; 95% CI: 0.058– 0.523; p= 0.002) and end point pneumonia (OR = 0.305; 95% CI: 0.113–0.821; p= 0.015) were found to
be independent factors for poor outcome of under-five children with ARIs. Our findings highlight that timely detection, proper
management and treatments as well as addressing other contributing factors are essentials in order to reduce prevalence and
poor clinical outcomes of under five children with ARIs.
