Abstract

Acute diarrhea and types of dehydration in Libyan children

Author(s): Aisha A Sehari

Acute Diarrhea is a leading cause of illness in developing countries. About seventeen of per cent Libyan children suffer from diarrhea. Diarrhea causes about 12% of mortalities in children aged 0-5years. The aim of this study is to estimate to estimate the types and the degree of dehydration and to find out the correlation between types and degree of dehydration and contributing risk factors. Seasonal variations were studied also. A retrospective study was done on all children patients admitted to Tripoli pediatric hospital during the year 2006 (from01/01/2006 to 31/12/2006) complaining of acute diarrheal diseases, age group (one month to 60 months),with exclusion of bloody diarrhea. All the cases were evaluated for their clinical presentation and laboratory results. The results of the study was summarized as following: total were 675 admitted patients diagnosed as acute diarrhea which was (14.91 %) out of the total admission (4526patients) to this hospital during that year, 408males, accounts for (60.44%), females were267 patients (39.56%). Moderate dehydration was the commonest type of dehydration (374patients=55.44%), followed by severe type (239child=35.4%) the least was mild dehydration (62patients=9.2%). Regarding the types of dehydration isonatremic dehydration was the commonest (458 patients 67.85%), followed by hypertonic dehydration (121patients =17.93%), the least was hyponatremic type (96 patients=14.22%).Out of these children patients 8 children died (1.19%) due to complication of acute diarrhea except one child who got other major contributing cause of mortality.