Abstract:

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, ICUs have varying qualities and quantities of infrastructure necessary for the provision of proper critical cares services. The report disease characteristics and mortality rates of patients admit to ICUs in sub-Saharan Africa vary widely from one population to another. The regional hospitals send their critical patients to these zonal referral hospitals for ICU care. Demographic profile and outcome of PICU patients can vary widely in different studies while there is a scarcity of data in Tanzania critically ill children.

Methodology: The study design was retrospective cross-sectional study. Facility-based chart review was carried among all children who are admitted at PICU and HDU at Bugando Medical Centre from January 2022 to June 2022.

Results: The study involved chart review of 171 patients. The baseline characteristics revealed that the study population consisted of 72 females (42.1%) and 99 males (57.9%). The majority of participants fell into the age group of 0-59 months (74.9%), and most resided in rural areas (67.8%). The duration of stay in PICU or HDU varied, with 71.3% of participants staying for 0-4 days. The most common reasons for admission were difficulty in breathing (22.2%), fever (13.5%), and cough (9.9%). Diagnoses varied, with congenital heart disease (15.2%), aspiration pneumonia (9.4%), and acute renal failure (7.6%) being the most prevalent. Outcomes showed that 64.3% of patients were discharged, while 35.7% died.

Conclusion: The mortality rate of our PICU and HDU was 35.7% and the most common cause of death Sepsis, Pneumonia had significantly higher mortality, equipping and staffing the HDU and PICU to improve the outcome of such critically sick patients.

Recommendation: Deliberate efforts should be put to strengthen the management of congenital heart disease in paediatric population as it was the common cause of admission and death at PICU and HDU.