فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Background: Social determinants of health (SDH) are an emerging concept with significant influence on health and may have an impact on children presenting with acute illnesses including those with hypoglycemia. Herein, we explored the relationship between SDH and the prevalence of hypoglycemia and outcomes among children presenting with acute emergencies in northwestern Nigeria.  Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of children admitted into the emergency ward of a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. At the presentation, we obtained socio-demographics, clinical features, diagnosis, random blood sugar, and outcomes (duration of hospitalization, death or discharged) and analyzed them with SPSS. Results: We included 597 children with a median (interquartile range) age of 3.5 (1.3 to 8) years. Most children were under 5 (337; 56.64%), and males (328; 54.9%). Most mothers of the children included had no formal education, 76.7% (458). The prevalence of hypoglycemia (< 2.8 mmol/L) was 8.2% (49/597), with a 99% confidence interval (CI) of 6.3 to 10.7%.  Based on the age, children aged 13 to 59 months had the highest prevalence of hypoglycemia (11.0%) with 99% CI of 7.4 to 16.1%. At presentation, gender, parents' occupations, parents' education levels, and socio-economic classes were not associated with hypoglycemia. The case fatality rate for hypoglycemia was 16.3% (8/49), which was higher than children without hypoglycemia (4.1%; 20/482), p<0.05. Conclusion: This study shows that among the SDH evaluated, only children aged 13–59 months were associated with hypoglycemia. In addition, the presence of hypoglycemia increased the odds of death by 4.5.