Clinical profile and outcome of children with meningitis- a prospective observational study in tertiary health care centre in Chennai

Objective: To study the clinical profile of children admitted with meningitis Design: Prospective observational study Setting: Study was conducted in PICU of tertiary health care centre in Chennai Participants: All children less than 18 years of age with a diagnosis of meningitis for a two years period between 2017- 2018 were included in the study Methods: All children with suspected meningitis admitted in pediatric intensive care unit of the Institution from January 2017 to December 2018 were studied. The variables included were age, sex, religion, residence, nutritional status, etiology of meningitis, duration of hospital stay, requirement of mechanical ventilation. The status of the child at the time of presentation, presence of shock, bleeding manifestations, raised intra cranial tension, was noted. The presence of sequelae and treatment and follow up was also noted. The collected data were analyzed with suitable statistical methods. Statistical analysis: Data was entered into Microsoft excel data sheet and was analyzed using SPSS 22 version software. Categorical data was represented in the form of Frequencies and proportions. Chi-square test was used as test of significance for qualitative data. Continuous data was represented as mean and standard deviation .p value of