Profile Of Leukocyte Count In Children With Typhoid Fever At The Dr. Tadjuddin Chalid Hospital, Makassar

Received: December, 23, 2020 Revised: March, 24, 2021 Available online: May 2021 Typhoid fever is one of the endemic diseases in Indonesia caused by Salmonella typhi bacteria. A hematological examination to support medical diagnosis is complete blood count – a decrease in the number of leukocytes is often found. This study was conducted to determine the number of leukocytes in patients with typhoid fever in children. This paper aims to analyze the number of leukocytes based on age, gender, hospital length of stay, and type of antibiotic. It was a descriptive method with a cross-sectional design. The sample was all typhoid fever patients aged 1-18 years hospitalized at the dr Tadjuddin Chalid hospital, Makassar, and 75 respondents by total sampling. Data collection was carried out using secondary data from medical records of patients from January to December 2018. The data analysis used the chi-square and Spearman test. It revealed that 28% of respondents had leukopenia, 54.7% had normal leukocytes, and 17.3% had leukocytosis. Leukopenia was mostly in respondents aged 7-12 years (34.4%), males (34.1%), hospital length of stay less than seven days (26.5%), and administered with ceftriaxone (26%). The chi-square analysis results between leukocyte count and age, gender, hospital length of stay, also type of antibiotic consecutively obtained p=0.064, 0.317, 0.414, 0.923 (p>0.05). Most children with typhoid fever have a normal leukocyte. However, the leukocyte count does not correlate with age, gender, hospital length of stay, and type of antibiotic.