Magnitude and Predictors of Pneumonia among Under-Five Children in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND: Pneumonia is currently the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among under-five children in developing countries, including Ethiopia. Although these problems are easily preventable and treatable, it contributes to more than 18% of deaths of under-five children every year in Ethiopia. Regardless of these facts, there is a paucity of information regarding the magnitude and its predictors of pneumonia in Ethiopia. Therefore, the main objective of this review is to determine the pooled magnitude of pneumonia and its predictors among under-five children in Ethiopia. METHODS: The international databases such as MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar, and Science Direct were scientifically explored. Articles were also searched by examining the gray literature on institutional databases and by reviewing reference lists of already identified articles. We considered all primary studies reporting the magnitude of pneumonia among under-five children and its predictors in Ethiopia. We retrieved all necessary data by using a standardized data extraction format spreadsheet. STATA 14 statistical software was used to analyze the data, and Cochrane's Q test statistics and I(2) test were used to assess the heterogeneity between the studies. Significant variability was found between the studies in such a way that a random-effect model was used. RESULT: The pooled magnitude of pneumonia among under-five children was 20.68% (I(2) = 97.9%; P ≤ 0.001) out of 12 studies in Ethiopia. Children who have unvaccinated (OR = 2.45), food cooking in the main house (OR = 2.46), vitamin A supplementation status (OR = 2.85), malnutrition (OR = 2.98), mixed breastfeeding (OR = 2.46), and child history of respiratory tract infection (OR = 4.11) were potential determinates of pneumonia. Conclusion and Recommendations. This review showed that the magnitude of pneumonia was relatively high. Hence, appropriate intervention on potential determinates such as health education on exclusive breastfeeding and nutrition, place of food cooking, increased immunization and vitamin A supplementation, and early control of respiratory tract infection was recommended to prevent those risk factors.