ETIOLOGY, CLINICAL SIGNS, PARACLINICAL FINDINGS AND PROGNOSIS OF BLOODY DIARRHEA IN CHILDREN ADMITTED TO CHILDREN REFERRAL HOSPITAL: A RETROSPECTIVE FIVE-YEAR EXPERIENCE

Diarrhea is a serious disease and a major cause of mortality in children under 5 years of age. Diarrhea is also an important factor in children's physical growth retardation, malnutrition and susceptibility to other diseases. Hence, the purposes of this study were to investigate common factors to identify causes of diarrhea and its result can be a step on the path to better treatment and prevention of infectious diseases. Study of the etiology of bloody diarrhea in children admitted to Tabriz Children's Hospital during 2009 to 2015

Medical records of 157 patients with bloody diarrhea were randomly selected and reviewed. Age, sex, length of hospitalization, duration of diarrhea, other clinical symptoms, response to treatment and outcome were recorded from documents. All data were collected and analyzed using SPSS® version 16 software.

Of all patients, 89.8% and 10.2% were admitted due to infectious and non-infectious etiologies of bloody diarrhea, respectively. Among the infectious and non-infectious agents, shigellosis and inflammatory bowel syndrome were the most common causes of childhood diarrhea in children. Approximately 93% of hospitalized patients with complete recovery and 5.7% were discharged with relative improvement. In addition, the mortality rate in this study was 0.63%.

The results of this study showed that despite the higher prevalence of infectious dysentery that can be prevented by a high-level hygiene, the mortality rate of non-infectious dysenteries are higher. Therefore, in addition to preventing such diarrhea, suspected cases should be treated promptly and fully