Assessment of severity of acute gastroenteritis in the paediatric Pakistani population by Modified Vesikari Score.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the severity of acute gastroenteritis in paediatric population.

METHODS: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted at 93 randomly selected outpatient centres with paediatric practice across Pakistan between July 2014 and January 2015, involving children between 3 to 48 months of age suffering from acute gastroenteritis. The severity of acute gastroenteritis was measured using Modified Vesikari Score. SPSS 18 was used for data analysis.

RESULTS: There were 1,756subjects having a mean age of 18.6±12.0 months. There were 220(12.52%) children ?6 months out of whom 73(33%) were exclusively breastfed. Most children had moderate 1,041(59.3%) and severe 403(22.9%) acute gastroenteritis. Overall 1,401(79.8%) carers were females, of whom 1,080(77.1%) were mothers with a mean age of 29.7±6.7 years. Oral rehydration solution 1,357(77.3%), plain water 1,083(61.7%), antipyretics 783(44.6%) and anti-diarrhoeals 645(36.7%) were most common medicines administered at home by the carers. Mean duration between gastroenteritis onset and seeking consultation was 2.7±1.7 days. Most common treatment provided by physicians were oral rehydration solution 1,451(82.6%), antibiotic 1,294(73.7%) and probiotic 1,105(62.9%). Worsening of symptoms 1,152(65.6%) was the most common reason for seeking consultation.

CONCLUSIONS: Most children assessed with acute gastroenteritis showed moderate to severe disease symptoms.|.