Introduction
Globally, childhood poisoning, accounts for a significant proportion of emergency department admissions. There is a paucity of data from low- and middle-income countries on poisoning in ...children.
Objective
To describe the incidence, case fatality rate, and types of poisoning in children admitted to a tertiary-level hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Methods
This was a retrospective descriptive study of children hospitalised with poisoning from January 2016 to December 2021 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital. Children were identified from a discharge summary database using ICD-10 codes that describe poisoning. Trends in incidence of poison exposure were reported.
Results
Of the 60,901 admissions during the study period, 2,652 (4.4%) children were diagnosed with poisoning. Most (71.3%) children were less than 5 years of age and 55% were male. The incidence of poisoning per 100,000 was highest at 108.4 (95% CI: 104.3–112.6) in 2019 and decreased to 77.3 (95% CI: 73.9–80.7) in 2020 and 59.6 (95% CI: 56.3–62.5) in 2021. Main causes of poisoning were organic solvents (37.6%), medications (32.9%), and pesticides (17.5%). The overall case fatality rate was 2.1%. In a multivariate analysis, poisoning secondary to pesticides (aOR: 13.9; 95% CI: 4.52–60.8;
p
< 0.001), and unspecified agents (aOR: 12.7; 95% CI: 3.27–62.8;
p
< 0.001) were associated with an increased odds of death.
Conclusion
We report a high prevalence of poisoning in children hospitalised in this tertiary-level hospital in South Africa. Public health measures to reduce the burden of organic solvents, medications and pesticide poisoning are urgently warranted.
The objective of the study was to identify the factors that affect the survival lifetime of HIV+ terminal patients in rural district hospitals of Albert Luthuli municipality in the Mpumalanga ...province of South Africa. A cohort of HIV+ terminal patients was retrospectively followed from 2010 to 2017 until a patient died, was lost to follow-up or was still alive at the end of the observation period. Nonparametric survival analysis and semiparametric survival analysis methods were used to analyse the data. Through Cox proportional hazards regression modelling, it was found that ART adherence (poor, fair, good), Age, Follow-up mass, Baseline sodium, Baseline viral load, Follow CD4 count by Treatment (Regimen 1) interaction and Follow-up lymphocyte by TB history (yes, no) interaction had significant effects on survival lifetime of HIV+ terminal patients (p-values<0.1). Furthermore, through quantile regression modelling, it was found that short, medium and long survival times of HIV+ patients, respectively represented by the 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 quantiles, were not necessarily significantly affected by the same factors.
Statistics
M. Sc. (Statistics)
The objective of the study was to identify the factors that affect the survival lifetime of HIV+ terminal patients in rural district hospitals of Albert Luthuli municipality in the Mpumalanga ...province of South Africa. A cohort of HIV+ terminal patients was retrospectively followed from 2010 to 2017 until a patient died, was lost to follow-up or was still alive at the end of the observation period. Nonparametric survival analysis and semiparametric survival analysis methods were used to analyse the data. Through Cox proportional hazards regression modelling, it was found that ART adherence (poor, fair, good), Age, Follow-up mass, Baseline sodium, Baseline viral load, Follow CD4 count by Treatment (Regimen 1) interaction and Follow-up lymphocyte by TB history (yes, no) interaction had significant effects on survival lifetime of HIV+ terminal patients (p-values<0.1). Furthermore, through quantile regression modelling, it was found that short, medium and long survival times of HIV+ patients, respectively represented by the 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 quantiles, were not necessarily significantly affected by the same factors.
