Ital J Pediatr
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There is a high frequency of diarrhea and vomiting in childhood. As a consequence the focus of the present review is to recognize the different body fluid compartments, to clinically assess the degree of dehydration, to know how the equilibrium between extracellular fluid and intracellular fluid is maintained, to calculate the effective blood osmolality and discuss both parenteral fluid maintenance and replacement.
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Comparative Study
Outcome of children with life-threatening asthma necessitating pediatric intensive care.
To report the outcome of children with life-threatening asthma (LTA) admitted to a university Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). ⋯ LTA accounted for a small percentage of PICU admissions. Previous hospital admissions for asthma and history of non-compliance were common. Approximately one quarters required ventilatory supports. Regardless of the need for mechanical ventilation, all patients survived with prompt treatment.
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Bronchiolitis guidelines suggest that neither bronchodilators nor corticosteroids, antiviral and antibacterial agents should be routinely used. Although recommendations, many clinicians persistently prescribe drugs for bronchiolitis. ⋯ We strongly confirm the large use of drugs in bronchiolitis management by hospital pediatricians. Main reason of this wrong practice appears to be the fact that pediatricians recognize bronchiolitis as a severe condition, with consequent anxiety in curing so acutely ill children without drugs, and that sometimes they feel forced to prescribe drugs because of personal reassurance or parental pressure. We also found that social "at risk" condition represents a main reason for hospitalization, not correlated to clinical severity of the disease neither to drug prescription. Eventually, we suggest a "step-by-step" strategy to rich a more evidence based approach to bronchiolitis therapy, by adopting specific and shared resident guidelines.
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Knowledge and awareness about childhood autism is low among health care workers and the general populace in Nigeria. Poor knowledge about childhood autism among final year medical, nursing and psychology students who would form tomorrow's child health care professionals can compromise early recognition and interventions that are known to improve prognosis in childhood autism. Educational factors that could be influencing knowledge about childhood autism among these future health care professionals are unknown. This study assessed knowledge about childhood autism among final year undergraduate medical, nursing and psychology students in south-eastern Nigeria and determined the factors that could be influencing such knowledge. ⋯ Peculiar situation in this environment as signified by inadequate human resources needed in the area of clinical psychology training often times necessitates employing first degree graduates in psychology into clinical positions. This calls for additional exposure of the undergraduate psychology students to training curriculum aimed at improving their early recognition of symptoms of autism spectrum disorders in this environment.