The Epidemiology of Co-Infections in Febrile Children Younger than 5-Years-Old in Emergency Department; A Cross-Sectional Hospital-Based Study

Background fever is one of the most common causes of children’s referral to pediatric emergency department (ed), and almost 20% of general ed referrals relate to febrile children. when it comes to febrile pediatrics patients, co-infection is a very important issue to discuss. this topic has been considered in current literature so, we considered to examine the epidemiology of these co-infections in febrile children younger than 5 years in emergency department. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out retrospectively with the enrollment of children younger than 5-years-old (accessible sampling) in the emergency department of mofid hospital, tehran, iran, during november 2017 to december 2018. after designing and completing a check list. results: totally, 388 patients with the mean age of 25.4 ± 12.4 months were studied (51.5% girl).the source of infection was unclear after using all of the diagnostic tools in 27.5% of cases. based on the findings fever-associated diarrhea (132 patients, 46.9%), and cellulitis (1 patient, 0.4%) were the most and least frequent source of infections, respectively. the co-incidence of different source of infections showed that the most frequent co-infections were sepsis and uti; otitis and uti; pneumonia and uti; pneumonia and uri; and sepsis and otitis. conclusion it seems that co-infections have been significantly increased in girls and in the age range of 6-36 months. the most and least prevalent infections were fever-associated diarrhea and cellulitis among the patients with at least one type of infection. the co-incidence of different source of infection showed that the most frequent co-infection were sepsis and uti; otitis and uti; pneumonia and uti; pneumonia and uri; and sepsis and otitis.