Abstract

Diarrhea and pneumonia are one of the major causes for morbidity and mortality among children below 5 years in India. As per WHO, The causes of childhood deaths showed a striking shift. In 2000, the leading causes of the 10.8 million deaths were neonatal conditions (33%), diarrhea (22%), pneumonia (21%), malaria (9%) and AIDS (3%). In 2015, the leading causes of the 5.9 million deaths were preterm birth complications and other neonatal causes (45%), pneumonia (16%), diarrhea (9%), malaria (5%), and AIDS (1%), strongly suggesting that scaled up coverage with interventions had a major impact.  The aim of the present study is to find the prescribing pattern of drugs to the patients admitted in the pediatric ward who were diagnosed and treated for diarrhea and pneumonia in a tertiary care teaching hospital.

The present study is a Prospective observational study. The study was carried out between December 2016 and September 2017.

Totally 446 case profiles were selected for the study. 64.12% patients were admitted for diarrhea and 35.88% patients for Pneumonia .The prevalence rate of diarrhea was found to be more in> 1 year of age group. All the diarrhea patients were treated with ORS and Zinc Supplements. LRTI patients especially with pneumonia were found to be higher in > 5 years of age group. Where these patients were prescribed with cephalosporins (82%), aminoglycosides (82%) followed by bronchodilators (100%) and corticosteroids (36%).

This shows that Diarrhea is still highly predominant cause of morbidity in the pediatric population than that of Pneumonia and the vulnerable age group among the pediatrics are >1 year in case of Diarrhea and >5 years for Pneumonia.

Keywords: Pediatric, Prescription Pattern, Diarrhea, Pneumonia.