Fatima Jehangir, Razia Latif, Ejaz Ahmed Vohra.
Risk Factors for Pneumonia in Children less than 5 years of age presenting at the Outpatient Clinic of a Primary Health Care in Pakistan.
Infect Dis J Jan ;22(1):528-31.

Background: Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of child mortality in developing countries. We aimed to determine the risk factors for pneumonia among children < 5 years of age in the outpatient clinic of a primary health care in Karachi. Methods: This case-control study was carried out with 100 cases and 100 controls at primary health care centre at Sikanderabad, Karachi and at the outpatient clinic of Paediatrics at Ziauddin University Hospital Karachi. Controls were healthy children recruited from the immunization clinic or siblings of children visiting the outpatient clinic for reasons other than pneumonia. A questionnaire was used to record the demographic features and predisposing factors for pneumonia like immunization status, breast feeding and nutritional status, educational status of parents and concurrent illness within the family members. Results: Mean age of the cases was 17.64±14.17, and controls was 24.9±17.53. There was a significant association between pneumonia and lack of breast feeding, lack of immunization, living in overcrowded conditions, low socio economic status, malnutrition, family history of URTI in siblings and LRTI in family members in the preceding 2 weeks. However gender, history of URTI in parents and history of LRTI in the child himself in the preceding 2 weeks were not significantly associated with pneumonia. Conclusion: Risk factors for pneumonia are re-emphasized as a result of this study and have policy implications for developing strong public health messages for immunization and breast feeding.

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