Outcomes of community acquired pneumonia in a tertiary hospital

Abstract

Despite the advances in healthcare setup, Community Acquired pneumonia still continues to be one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality among the hospitalised, especially the elderly population. Knowledge about the distribution of the disease, susceptible population, risk factors, mortality and morbidity outcomes makes it easy for the effective management of the affected individuals. Even though we have enough data on worldwide distribution and outcome of CAP, similar studies in Indian setup are few. Considering the fact that the change in environment, population characteristics and difference in clinical practices can hugely influence the outcome of CAP, it was found necessary to conduct this study.: To understand the demographic profile of patients, to identify the main symptoms and risk factors and to find out the outcome of patients admitted with CAP in a tertiary health care centre in Thrissur. Retrospective study by collecting the details of patients hospitalized with CAP in the past one year by going through their medical records. The incidence of CAP was found to be steadily increasing with age, more in males with productive cough being the most common symptom. While in majority of cases no organisms were isolated, the ones which had an identified causative organism were mainly bacterial. Maximum cases occurred in monsoon season and the mortality rate was 2%.