Nurzahan Ferdoush1, Miftaul Jannat Chowdhury2, Hussain Ahmad3, Rifat Jahan4, Estiak Ahmed5, Arafatul Islam6, Md. Ansar Khan7
1. Lecturer, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Sylhet Women’s Medical College, Sylhet
2. Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Sylhet Women’s Medical College, Sylhet
3. Associate Professor Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Sylhet Women’s Medical College, Sylhet
4. Assistant Professor & Head, Department of Community Medicine, Parkview Medical College, Sylhet
5. Lecturer, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Sylhet Women’s Medical College, Sylhet
6. IMO, Department of Internal Medicine, Sylhet M.A.G Osmani Medical College, Sylhet
7. Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Sylhet, M.A.G Osmani Medical College, Sylhet
Abstract
Acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) is a highly fatal disease and also a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children below 5 years of age. About 70% of acute watery diarrhoea is caused by viruses where antibiotics have no role in treatment protocol. Uses of probiotic are newly invention to use in AWD showed the improvement of diarrhoeal severity and duration. In this study, we want to know the effectiveness of probiotic therapy in under 5 children of AWD. This descriptive type of observational study conducted in the department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics in collaboration with Department of Pediatrics, Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College from July 2019 to June 2020. Patients of AWD from 1 month to 5 years were included in this study. 164 pediatric patients with AWD recruited in this study. Patients who were treated with probiotics were followed up for severity of diarrhoea (both frequency and duration), and duration of hospital stay in AWD. Mean age of this study was 17.97±10.03months, maximum patients were having some sign of dehydration (79.69%). For mean changes of frequency of defecation based on the Vesikari severity scoring system, the score became below two on third day(1.84±0.91). Mean duration of hospital stay was significantly less (3.36±0.545) in treatment with probiotic therapy. From this study it may be concluded that probiotic therapy in AWD under 5 years of age showed beneficial in terms of diarrhoeal severity (frequency and duration) and hospital stay.
Key Words: Acute watery diarrhoea, children, probiotic therapy.