Occurrence of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections among Children Under Five Years Attending Kinango Sub-County Hospital, Kenya

Objective: To examine occurrence of Acute Respiratory tract Infections (ARIs) and determine factors associated with ARIs among children under five years attending Kinango Sub-County Hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among mother-child aged between 0-59 month’s pairs attending outpatient care. Participants were recruited using systematic sampling method. Data was collected using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize child, parental and environmental characteristics. Factors associated with ARIs were established using binary logistic regression analysis. Odds Ratio (OR), at 95% Confidence Interval (CI) and p <0.05 significant level was used to describe an association between covariates and the outcome variable. Independent factors associated with occurrence of ARIS were determined by stepwise logistic regression. Results: 385 children participated in this study. 228 children (59.2%) presented with ARIs, of which 90.8% were due to acute upper respiratory tract infections. 9.2% of the cases were due to pneumonia. Female gender aOR 3.39 [1.21-9.46], stunting aOR 3.62 [1.04-12.61], high parity aOR 11.45 [2.38-55.09], low maternal education aOR 3.54 [1.10-11.32] and recent hospitalization aOR 8.19 [1.75-38.43] increased the odds of occurrence of an ARI while normal birth weight aOR0.06 [0.01-0.62] was protective of ARIs. Conclusion: A high prevalence of ARIs among children aged below five years was observed in this study, associated with gender, stunting, parity, maternal education, birth weight and recurring hospitalization. Improvements in literacy levels, child nutrition and maternal and child health at large could help to reduce morbidity due to ARIs in this population.