Preliminary study of the baseline characteristics of patients, etiological agents of community-acquired pneumonia and mortality in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Background: Studies relating the baseline characteristics of patients with community-acquired pneumonia and the bacterial etiological agents to the mortality of the disease are scanty in our environment. This study therefore aimed at determining the contribution of the baseline characteristics of patients with community-acquired pneumonia, the bacterial etiological agents to the mortality in our environment.

Methods: Data of patients with community-acquired pneumonia were retrieved and the effects of these on mortality were studied retrospectively. These data included age, gender, occupations, marital status, smoking, severity assessment using CURB 65 score, alcohol use, sources of referral, and bacterial etiological agents. These were subjected to statistical analysis using the SPSS version 15.

Results: The age groups with the highest mortality frequencies were those below 30 years (41.1%) and above 60 years (29.4%). Marital status, gender of patients, use of alcohol and smoking did not seem to affect the mortality rates. Eight patients had concomitant chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and four died (50.0%) while 12 patients had bronchial asthma, none of whom died. Patients with Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections had the highest mortality rates (5.9% and 17.6%) in cases of single and multiple pathogens respectively. None of the patients had severity score documented on admission.

Conclusion: This is a preliminary study and further studies are necessary to determine the relationship of smoking, alcohol and etiological agents to mortality in community-acquired pneumonia using a larger population as study size.