Factors Contributing to Pneumonia in Children Under five Years of age in Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Pneumonia is the biggest infectious killer of children under five years of age, especially in poor countries. In addition to the immune system of the children, various factors play a vital role in developing pneumonia in these children. We aimed to analyze the factors in Nepal Demography and Health Survey 2016 that could contribute to developing pneumonia in children under 5.

Methods: We used the 2016 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) dataset in this analysis. According to World Health Organization (WHO), pneumonia is diagnosed in under five population as having cough and / or difficult breathing, with / without fever. We considered pneumonia if at least two of these symptoms were present. We created three separate variables: having cough (Yes = 1, No = 0), difficulty breathing (Yes = 1, No = 0) and with fever (Yes = 1, No = 0). We assessed the association between pneumonia and other categorical variables using chi-square test and compared means using independent samples t-test.

Results: In bivariate analysis, wealth index, use of drug for intestinal parasite and history of diarrhea in past two weeks had statistically significant association in occurrence of pneumonia in children under five years of age. However, in multivariate analysis, occurrence of pneumonia was 1.78 times higher in children with history of recent diarrhea after controlling for wealth index and drug for intestinal parasite.

Conclusion: Measures that could prevent the occurrence of diarrhea could also prevent the development of pneumonia in children under five years of age.