Prevalence and associated risk factors of pneumonia in under five years children using the data of the University of Gondar Referral Hospital

Abstract

Pneumonia is the major killer of children under five ages than any other illness in the world. Thus, the main aim of this study was to identify the prevalence and associated risk factors of pneumonia among under-five-year children using the data of the University of Gondar referral hospital. An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 270 children were selected by systematic sampling technique. The source of the data for this study was primary data. Data were entered and cleaned using Epi Info version 7 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Multinomial logistic regression models were used in this study. The prevalence of pneumonia among children under five was 18.5%. Multinomial logistic regression analysis result showed history of diarrhea (AOR = 2.130, 95% CI: 1.343–9.594), completely immunized (AOR = 0.131, 95% CI: 0.020−0.849, p value = .033), exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months (AOR = 0.108, 95% CI: 0.040−0.292, p value = 0.000), household history of ALRI (AOR = 3.142, 95% CI = 1.213–8.140, p value = 0.018), and crowded house (AOR = 3.908, 95% CI = 1.511–10.108, p value = 0.005) were statistically significantly associated with childhood pneumonia. The prevalence of pneumonia in this study is high. The results of the multiple multinomial logistic regression analysis models show that children who had a history of diarrhea for one month, immunization history, breastfeeding of the child, household history of ALRI, and children living in an overcrowded house were found to be statistically significant factors for pneumonia.

Keywords:

• Pneumonia
• Under five years children
• Associated risk factors
• Prevalence

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Pneumonia is the single leading cause of mortality in children under five and is a major cause of child mortality. Pneumonia kills more children less than five years of age than any other illness in the world. The prevalence of pneumonia and its consequences for children’s health, and especially for their growth and development, have made pneumonia an important public health problem, given the difficulty in implementing effective measures for controlling it. Childhood pneumonia is caused by a combination of host and environmental factors, but the most common factors are bacteria and virus. In low- and middle-income countries, pneumonia is frequently caused by bacterial pathogens in contrast to high-income countries where viral pathogens predominate. Viruses are the most common cause of pneumonia in young children, but the prevalence decreases with increasing age. It was more common during the rainy seasons and winter months.

Acknowledgements

We thank all study participants and pediatric staff at UGH who gave full collaboration during the study.

Ethical Approval

Ethical clearance was obtained from the college review board of the University of Gondar, College of Natural and Computational Science. A formal letter of cooperation was written for Gondar university hospital.

Consent

Consent for publication is secured from study participants. Consent from study participants was obtained prior to the data collection process. Information and confidentiality have been maintained by enrolling data collectors. People were not being forced to participate in the research, which is the fundamental principle of voluntary participation in research ethics.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Data Availability

The dataset analyzed during the current study is available from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ contributions

Dessie Melese has contributed to conceptualization of the research problem, research concept and design, collection, and/or assembly of data, data analysis, and interpretation and writing of the article. Asrat Atsedwyen, Kassim Mohammed, Mequanent Wale Bisrat Misganaw, and Moges Zerihun have played a great role in re-vision of the research design, manuscript write-up, and editing the entire manuscript. Finally, all the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

No fund was obtained from any source to conduct this study.

Notes on contributors

Dessie Melese Chekole

Mr Dessie Melese is a lecturer at the University of Gondar, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Department of Statistics, Gondar, Ethiopia. He graduated from the University of Gondar in statistics (B.Sc. in statistics and M.Sc. in biostatistics). From August 2011 to June 2016, he served as a junior statistician at Central Statistics Agency, Gondar Branch, Ethiopia. Currently, he works as a lecturer at the University of Gondar, Department of Statistics. His responsibilities are teaching different courses of statistics, consulting and advising students on academic issue and on their senior research project, working on research and community service in both team and individual levels, strongly participating in different national and international conferences, and giving/participating different advanced statistical software trainings.