The management of pediatric medical emergencies is a focus of WHO’s strategy to reduce child and adolescent morbidity and mortality worldwide. It requires the synergy of several inputs including infrastructure, equipment and a sufficiently trained staff. The aim of our study was to present the epidemiological aspects of pediatric medical emergencies at Kindu General Reference Hospital in order to facilitate the projection of the actions to be carried out. To do this, we undertook a cross-sectional, descriptive and retrospective study by collecting the data in the pediatric ward of Kindu General Reference Hospital from January 1st to December 31st, 2017 with age, sex, month of admission, emergency sign, diagnostic hypothesis, treatment, length of stay and discharge modality as study’s variables in children with an emergency sign (difficulty breathing, convulsion, coma, shock and severe dehydration). After processing data on Excel 2010 and SPSS 23 software, the analysis by descriptive statistical measures shows that the frequency of signs of medical emergency in children is 21.4% among which 52.3% are male, over 70% of children with emergency signs are under the age of five with an average age of 2.1 years, the high frequency of signs of urgency was observed in June, the decreasing order of frequency of various emergency signs is severe dehydration (58.9%), seizures (24.1%), difficulty breathing (10.3%), coma (5.6%) and the state of shock (1.2%); Malaria (48.1%), diarrhea (28.3%) and meningitis (19.2%) were common causes of the signs of emergencies, symptomatic treatment for the different signs of urgency was applied in 88.6% of cases, the duration of hospitalization of children with an emergency sign is less than 4 days in 50% of cases with an average of 4 ± 3 days and mortality among children with a sign emergency in our study is 17.3%. These results highlight the existence of life-threatening medical emergencies in the child in our work environment and require the establishment of a real pediatric emergency unit within the HGRK.
Cite this paper
Kingwengwe, A. A. , Ndjadi, A. K. , Lukusa, P. M. , Ilunga, P. M. , Ibeki, E. K. , Kyanga, P. A. , Makuburi, T. A. , Kitambo, D. M. , Pongombo, M. S. , Wakamb, G. K. A. , Assumani, N. , Nlandu, E. K. , Mwamba, E. S. , Numbi, O. L. and Okitotsho, S. W. (2019). Epidemiology of Pediatric Medical Emergencies at the Kindu Reference General Hospital (HGRK): State of Affairs and Perspectives. Open Access Library Journal, 6, e5715. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105715.
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