CH Sandeep Reddy¹, G V Harish², B Divya³

¹Assistant Professor,²Associate Professor,³Postgraduate student, Department of Paediatrics, Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Karimnagar,Telangana, India.

Address for correspondence: Dr ChSandeep Reddy, Assistant Professor,Department of Paediatrics, Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Karimnagar,Telangana, India.
Email: srchinth@gmail.com

Introduction : Acute respiratory distress isa major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries in children especially in under-fives. Every year in the world, about 13 million under-5 children die,of which 95% are from developing countries. The aim of this study is to identify the significant risk factors of acute respiratory distress in children less than five years of ageadmitted in paediatrics department.

Materials and Methods :A prospective study of 100 sequential admissions presenting with the chief complaints of acute respiratory distress were included. The study period was from November 2016 to November 2017.

Results :As per the data obtained from this study, major cause of morbidity is seen in males (52% of 100cases)than females (48% of 100cases), infants less than 6mnths are more affected (40% of 100)than older ones,and children of rural background are more affected (80%of 100cases)than urban(20%of 100cases).And also patients with low socio economic status (94% of 100cases) ,who are not exclusively breastfed upto6months(56% of 100cases), who are incompletely immunized for age (26%), overcrowding(70% of100cases), inadequate ventilation(80% of 100cases), smoking(78% of 100cases),children of illiterate mothers(40% of 100 cases)and who aremalnourished(78% of 100) are more affected.

Conclusion :Children are prone for acute respiratory distress due to socio-demographic and socio-cultural risk factors. Identified risk factors in this study are lack of breastfeeding, overcrowding, rural setting, mothers illiteracy ,inadequate ventilation,passivesmoking and malnutrition which can be removed by education, general public awareness by which burden of disease and cost of treatment can be minimised.

Keywords :Acute respiratory distress,children,malnutrition.