European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

BACTERIAL MENINGITIS TREATMENT OUTCOME AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG CHILDREN ADMITTED TO THE PEDIATRIC WARD, DILLA UNIVERSITY REFERRAL HOSPITAL, DILLA, ETHIOPIA

Sileshi Elias, MD, Abdene Kaso* and Yabibal Gebeyehu, MD

ABSTRACT

Background: Meningitis is inflammation of the meninges which affects all age groups from newborn to elderly. The highest mortality and morbidity of meningitis occur in Sub-Saharan Africa despite the advance in technology. Monitoring the level of treatment outcome has significant value in designing strategies to control meningitis. Objective: This study aimed to assess the treatment outcome of bacterial meningitis and associated factors among children in the pediatric ward, Dilla University Referral Hospital (DURH), Southern Ethiopia. Methods: A retrospective institutional-based cross-sectional study design was used to assess the treatment outcome and associated factors of bacterial meningitis among children registered from March 2019 to February 2020 in DURH. Then data was entered into Statistical Package for Social Science version 25 software for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was used to determine predictors of favorable treatment outcomes. The odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. P-value less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. Results: Among 120 patients, 82(68.3%) came from rural areas and 81(67.5%) were males respectively. The overall proportion of favorable treatment outcomes was 92(76.7%) while 28(23.3%) have poor treatment outcomes. In this study, being female [AOR= 0.12(0.03, 0.62)], undernourished children [AOR= 0.18(0.03, 0.77)], exclusive breastfeeding 38.7(6.4, 234.4) and clinical presentation such as seizure [AOR= 49 (5.35, 450.31)] and HGF [AOR= 78.69(3.82, 1619.27)] were found to be statistically associated with favorable treatment outcome of meningitis. Conclusion: The overall proportion of favorable treatment outcomes was 76.7%. In this study, being female, exclusive breastfeeding, undernourished children, and children with HGF and seizure were significantly associated with Favourable treatment outcomes. Therefore, early diagnosis, critical follows up and effective management of patients with clinical presentation is needed.

Keywords: Treatment outcome, Bacterial meningitis, Dilla University.