Pattern and outcome of admissions at the Emergency Pediatric Unit of Federal Medical Centre Nguru, Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

Emergency care involves the care of patients with acute illnesses or injuries that require immediate medical attention. Periodic evaluation of emergency unit generally provides an excellent means of auditing hospital performance and assessing the quality of services in the hospital. The aim was to determine the pattern and outcome of Pediatrics admissions at the emergency Pediatrics unit of Federal Medical Centre Nguru, Yobe State, Nigeria. This is a retrospective review of case notes of all children admitted into emergency unit at the Pediatrics Department of Federal Medical Centre Nguru between November 2015 and October 2017. The data was entered into SPSS version 20 soft-ware and a descriptive analysis was used for analysis of the data. A total of 3289 patients aged from 1 month to 192 months (16 years) were seen. The mean age was 52.1± 46.3 months. There were 57.8% males and 42.2% females. Underfive children admitted were 62.2%, children 5 years and above were 37.8%. The common indications for admission were malaria (24.8%), diarrhea (11.1%), sickle disease (9.8%) and sepsis (7.4%). Most (50.0%) of the patients were transferred to the ward, while 35.0% discharged home from the EPU. Mortality was 11.6%, while 0.8% of the patients were discharged against medical advice and 1.2% absconded from admission. Infections especially malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea diseases are the most prevalent causes of childhood morbidity and mortality in emergency pediatric unit of the hospital, and children less than 5 years of age are commonly affected.