Risk factors of acute respiratory infections among under five children attending public hospitals in southern Tigray, Ethiopia, 2016/2017

BACKGROUND: Acute Respiratory infection accounts for 94,037000 disability adjusted life years and 1.9 million deaths worldwide. Acute respiratory infections is the most common causes of under-five illness and mortality. The under five children gets three to six episodes of acute respiratory infections annually regardless of where they live. Disease burden due to acute respiratory infection is 10–50 times higher in developing countries when compared to developed countries. The aim of this study was to assess risk factors of acute respiratory infection among under-five children attending Public hospitals in Southern Tigray, Ethiopia 2016/2017. METHODS: Institution based case control study was conducted from Nov 2016 to June 2017. Interviewer administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 288 (96 cases and 192 controls) children under 5 years of age. Systematic random sampling was used to recruit study subjects and SPSS version 20 was used to analyze the data. Bivariate and multivariate analysis were employed to examine statistical association between the outcome variable and selected independent variables at 95% confidence level. Level of statistical Significance was declared at p < 0.05. Tables, figures and texts were used to present data. RESULT: One hundred sixty (55.6%) and 128 (44.4%) of the participants were males and females respectively. Malnutrition (AOR = 2.89; 95%CI: 1.584–8.951; p = 0.039), cow dung use (AOR =2.21; 95%CI: 1.121–9.373; p = 0.014), presence of smoker in the family (AOR = 0.638; 95% CI: 0.046–0.980; p = 0.042) and maternal literacy (AOR = 3.098; 95%CI: 1.387–18.729; p = 0.021) were found to be significant predictors of acute respiratory infection among under five children. CONCLUSION: According to this study maternal literacy, smoking, cow dung use and nutritional status were strongly associated with increased risk of childhood acute respiratory infection. Health care providers should work jointly with the general public, so that scientific knowledge and guidelines for adopting particular preventive measures for acute respiratory infection are disseminated.