Prospective of infant morbidity and mortality in mothers of patients from 6 to 59 months admitted in two reference hospitals in Niamey, Niger

Abstract

Mothers arrive in pediatric institutions with a medical background psycho-emotionally burdened which affects the quality of the treatments. The aim of this study was to characterize the medical experience of mothers of patients from 6 to 59 months old admitted at the hospital in terms of morbidity and infant mortality. It’s a descriptive cross-sectional survey conducted from 16 January to 2 May 2016 in two reference hospitals in Niamey. The mothers were interviewed on the medical history of their children. The study concerned 287 mothers of hospitalized children from 6 to 59 months old. 74% of them were between 18 and 35 years old; 62.02% not in school and 87.45% without income-generating activities. Among the children from 6 to 59 months old hospitalized or dead in the past, boys were leading in number with respectively, 64.52% and 53.92%. The findings from this study revealed that the hospitalizations and infant death most concerned the children from 6 to 11 months old with respectively, 42% and 48%. The results also showed that 15.38% of mothers were unsatisfied of the treatment during their last stay at the hospital. The morbidity was correlated with the sex (P = 0.035) and with the age group (p = 0.004) whereas the mortality was correlated with the age group only (P = 0.0001). Thus mothers still feel the past medical situation of their children that must be taken into account in the relations among the cures.

Keywords: Morbidity, mortality, emergency, pediatrics, Niger.