EN
TÜRKÇE
Poster - 17
Delayed presentation in the common paediatric surgery cases among Sudanese children: possible causes March 2018 – March 2019
Nosyba Omer, Abdelbasit Ali
king saud medical city
ABSTRACT
Background: a considerable number of children seek medical/surgical advice so late in the developing countries especially in Africa, even in many African countries surgical care is non-existent. Many factors and obstacles had contributed to that delay. There is a paucity of published data and such information is important for assessing the impact on child health and setting priorities to improve pediatric surgical care.
Aim: to determine the reasons for delayed presentation in the common pediatric surgery cases among Sudanese children.
Methods & materials: this is a descriptive cross-sectional hospital-based study that had been conducted among pediatric surgery units in Sudan from March 2018 to March 2019, all children with surgical conditions whose age between 1 day and 16 years were included after consents were obtained. Using a predesigned data collection sheet (questionnaire) data had been collected and analyzed using SPSS version 22.
Results: one hundred and twenty children were involved in this study, 61% were males, most of the children were either below 10 months of age or between 5-8 years, and 36% of the patients came from the Khartoum and its surroundings. The most common reason for late presentation was the delayed referral either due to misdiagnosis and admission in other wards or being on follow-up with a physician, followed by illiteracy, negligence, ignorance, poverty and living faraway. The most commonly involved condition in the emergencies was complicated appendicitis by 19.9% and in the cold cases was the undescended testis 18%.
Conclusion: there are many factors that lead to delayed presentations of children with surgical conditions. The most common reason was the delayed referral by other medical staff followed by the other factors like living faraway and poverty. All of them have a remarkable impact on the morbidity and mortality of the children so the pediatric surgical care should be given the priority in the future plans.