Burden, predictors, and outcome of unconsciousness among under-five children hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia: A retrospective study from a developing country

Despite the reduction of death from pneumonia over recent years, pneumonia has still been the leading infectious cause of death in under-five children for the last several decades. Unconsciousness is a critical condition in any child resulting from any illness. Once it occurs during a pneumonia episode, the outcome is perceived to be fatal. However, data on children under five with pneumonia having unconsciousness are scarce. We’ve retrospectively analyzed the data of under-five children admitted at the in-patient ward of Dhaka Hospital of icddr,b during 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2017 with World Health Organization classified pneumonia or severe pneumonia. Children presented with or without unconsciousness were considered as cases and controls respectively. Among a total of 3,876 children fulfilling the inclusion criteria, 325 and 3,551 were the cases and the controls respectively. A multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed older children (8 months vs. 7.9 months) (adjusted odds ratio, aOR 1.02, 95% CI: 1.004–1.04, p = 0.015), hypoxemia (aOR 3.22, 95% CI: 2.39–4.34, p<0.001), severe sepsis (aOR 4.46, 95% CI: 3.28–6.06, p<0.001), convulsion (aOR 8.90, 95% CI: 6.72–11.79, p<0.001), and dehydration (aOR 2.08, 95% CI: 1.56–2.76, p<0.001) were found to be independently associated with the cases. The cases more often had a fatal outcome than the controls (23% vs. 3%, OR 9.56, 95% CI: 6.95–13.19, p<0.001). If the simple predicting factors of unconsciousness in children under five hospitalized for pneumonia with different severity can be initially identified and adequately treated with prompt response, pneumonia-related deaths can be reduced more effectively, especially in resource-limited settings.