Pattern of Respiratory Diseases, Morbidities and Outcome in Patients Admitted in Respiratory Ward of a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Respiratory diseases are leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide imposing significant global health burden. The admission rate of patients is the indication of the overall workload in the ward. The aim of this study was to find the prevalence of admission of patients in the pulmonology ward among patients visiting pulmonology department of a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. Medical records of all patients visiting pulmonology department and admitted in pulmonology ward from May 2018 to April 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Data entry and analysis was done in SPSS version 20.0. Descriptive statistics were performed. RESULTS: A total of 30,480 patients visited the pulmonology department in the two-year study period. Out of them, 1296 (4.25%) patients were admitted in the pulmonology ward. Eleven respiratory diseases were identified as primary causes for admission. Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (44.5%), pneumonia (26.3%), tuberculosis (11%), lung cancer (5%) and bronchiectasis (3.9%) ranked top five causes for admission. CONCLUSIONS: Respiratory diseases impose tremendous burden in health care setting. Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia and tuberculosis remain an important cause of respiratory admissions in our study.