Influence of Socio-Demographic and Clinical Variables on the Frequency of Acute Respiratory Infections among Under-five Children

Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among young children. They account for nearly 3.9 million deaths every year globally. ARI accounts for 30–40% of the hospital outpatient visits by children under five years of age. About 156 million new episodes of childhood clinical pneumonia occurred globally in 2000, more than 95% of them in developing countries. Of all the pneumonia cases occurring in those countries, 8.7% are severe enough to be life-threatening and require hospital admission. Various risk factors have been identified across the globe such as low birth weight, lack of exclusive breastfeeding, crowding-more than seven persons per household, exposure to indoor air pollution, incomplete immunization, under-nutrition, and HIV infection.

To find out the association between socio-demographic variables and frequency of acute respiratory infections among under-five children.

To find out the association between clinical variables and frequency of acute respiratory infections among under-five children.

A cross sectional study was conducted among 400 under-five children admitted in various hospitals of northern part of Kerala, South India from January 2016-December 2016. Socio-demographic and clinical data was collected by using a Socio-Demographic and Clinical Variable Portfolio. One year follow up was done to identify the frequency of acute respiratory infections among the study participants.

A significant association (p<0.05) was found between frequency of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) and age of children, domicile, method of waste disposal, smoking habits of parents, birth weight and nutrional status.