THE PATTERN AND MAGNITUDE OF PEDIATRICS SURGICAL ADMISSIONS AT WOLKITE UNIVERSITY SPECIALIZED HOSPITAL, WOLKITE, ETHIOPIA: A TWO-YEAR REVIEW (Aug 20, 2021-Aug 20, 2023 G.C

Abstract

Background: Pediatric surgery is one of the demanding surgical disciplines and surgical cares for pediatric patients in developing countries is said to be too expensive to deliver mainly due to economic constraints and burden of non-surgical illness. Pediatric surgical admissions dramatically increased throughout the world because of increased trauma, emergency diseases and survival of congenital diseases and surgical diseases are inadequately addressed globally. There is growing evidence that childhood surgical conditions are common in developing countries and that poor care result in significant number of deaths and disability. Unfortunately, pediatric surgical care is not considered as an essential component of most child health programmers. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the pattern and determine the magnitude of pediatric surgical patient’s admission to Wolkite University specialized hospital. Methods: A Facility-based, descriptive study was conducted. Pediatrics surgical patients who were admitted to Wolkite university specialized hospital (WUSH) from August 20, 2021 to August 20, 2023 G.C were included in the study. Data was collected from patient’s medical record; registration and operation room logbooks by organized data collection tool retrieved from different literature and was organized according to the study objectives. The collected data was entered, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS version 25 statistical software and descriptive analysis was done. Results: This study showed that there were 432 pediatric surgical admissions (i.e 26.8% of total admissions) to WUSH from Aug. 20, 2021 G.C up to Aug. 20, 2023 G.C. 143 pediatrics surgical patients were selected randomly. From these 99(69.2%) were male and 44(30.8%) were females. Of this most of the patients was from rural area 81.8% and only 18.2% were from urban areas. The commonest mode of admission was on Emergency basis 135(94.4%) and Elective cases were only 8 (5.6%). The commonest case were trauma 53(37.1%) followed by Gastrointestinal conditions 45 (31.5%), surgical infections 27(18.9%), congenital anomaly 10(7%) and genitourinary conditions 8 (5.6%) respectively. Conclusion: pediatrics surgical conditions are common in the hospital. Mostly trauma cases are significant followed by gastrointestinal conditions.