Intestinal Parasitic Infections Among Patients Who Visited Woldia Comprehensive Specialized Hospital’s Emergency Department Over a Six-Year Period, Woldia, Ethiopia: A Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: Despite ongoing intensive public health intervention efforts, intestinal parasitic infections (IPIs) remain a major public health problem in developing countries, including Ethiopia. Having updated epidemiological data focusing on the top common IPIs that cause emergency visits is crucial for implementing area-specific and evidence-based intervention strategies. Hence, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of IPIs in Woldia Comprehensive Specialized Hospital’s (WCSH) emergency laboratory over a six-year period. METHODS: An institutional-based retrospective study was conducted to assess the prevalence of IPIs over a six-year period (2014–2019) using a recorded saline wet-mount stool sample examination result in the laboratory logbook at WCSH’s emergency department. RESULTS: In this study, of the total of 11,281 clinically suspected individuals who were requested for stool sample examination, 3908 (34.6%) individuals were diagnosed with IPs. The majority of confirmed cases were caused by protozoan parasites (32.9%), followed by helminth infections (1.7%). A slight fluctuating trend in the prevalence of IPs was observed in the six-year study period, with the highest prevalence documented in the year of 2014 (41.3%) and the lowest in 2017 (28.0%). Entamoeba histolytica/dispar and Giardia lamblia accounts for 95% of the IPs. The prevalence of protozoan infection was significantly higher in females (p-value = 0.0101), while H. nana (p-value =0.0138) and E. vermicularis (p-value = 0.0201) infections were higher in males. The highest and the lowest IP prevalence were reported in the age groups of 45–54 years (40%) and under five years (25.6%), respectively. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: In the study area, nearly one-third of patients with emergency visits due to gastrointestinal symptoms were infected with IPs. This underlines the severity of the problem in the study area, which requires a collaborative effort of concerned bodies to minimize the burden of IP to the level where it is no longer a public health threat.