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. 2022 Jun 24;12(1):10741.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-14818-2.

Prevalence and outcome of anemia among children hospitalized for pneumonia and their risk of mortality in a developing country

Mohammod Jobayer Chisti  1 , Chowdhury Ali Kawser  2 , Abu Sayem Mirza Md Hasibur Rahman  2 , Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayeem Bin Shahid  2 , Farzana Afroze  2 , K M Shahunja  3 , Lubaba Shahrin  2 , Monira Sarmin  2 , Sharika Nuzhat  2 , Ahmed Ehsanur Rahman  2 , Tahmina Alam  2 , Irin Parvin  2 , M S T Mahmuda Ackhter  2 , Gazi Md Salahuddin Mamun  2 , Shamsun Nahar Shaima  2 , Abu Syed Golam Faruque  2 , Tahmeed Ahmed  2
Affiliations

Prevalence and outcome of anemia among children hospitalized for pneumonia and their risk of mortality in a developing country

Mohammod Jobayer Chisti et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Data are limited on the prevalence and outcome of anemia and its risk on mortality among children under five years of age hospitalized for pneumonia/severe pneumonia. Thus, we conducted a secondary analysis of data extracted from Dhaka Hospital of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh to address the evidence gap. Among 3468 children fulfilling the study criteria,1712 (49.4%) had anemia. If children aged ≤ 1.0, > 1.0 to 2.0, > 2.0 to < 6.0, and ≥ 6.0 to 59 months had blood hemoglobin (Hb) value of ≤ 10.7 g/dL, ≤ 9.4 g/dL, ≤ 9.5 g/dL, and ≤ 11 g/dl respectively; we considered them anemic. The trend of prevalence of anemia was found to be inversely related to increasing age (Chi-square for linear trend analysis was done to understand the relation of anemia with increasing age, which was = 6.96; p = 0.008). During hospitalization anemic children more often developed respiratory failure (7.2% vs. 4.4%, p < 0.001) and fatal outcome (7.1.0% vs. 4.2%, p < 0.001) than the children who did not have anemia. After adjusting for potential confounders, such as female sex, lack of immunization, abnormal mental status, severe acute malnutrition, dehydration, hypoxemia, severe sepsis, and bacteremia using multivariable logistic regression analysis, anemia was found to be independently associated with fatal outcome (OR = 1.88, 95% CI 1.23-2.89, p = 0.004). Thus, future interventional studies on the early management of anemia may be warranted to understand whether the intervention reduces the morbidity and deaths in such children.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study profile.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The inverse relation of anemia with increasing age among children under five hospitalized for pneumonia/severe pneumonia using Chi-square for linear trend for anemia.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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