Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 125 (1997)The Causes and Clinical Course of Patients Presenting with Fever in Al AinHospitalStudent Authors: Aisha Sultan Al OlamaFaculty Supervisors: Dr. M.M. HossainAbstract:Objectives To determine the causes of fever in patients admitted with fever forinvestigation. To characterize the clinical, diagnostic spectrum and the outcome ofthose patients.Methods A retrospective descriptive study. 147 records were reviewed. Identificationdata, data from history, positive physical findings, pattern of fever, management andclinical outcome were assessed for each patient.Results 66.67% of patients aged between 13-42 years. Asian nationalities were themost common nationals attributed for this study followed by UAE nationals. Infectiousdiseases were the most common cause of fever (72.4% of causes). Diagnosis wasunknown in 15.6% of patients. Chronic renal and liver diseases were 3.4%. Otherscategory which include variety of diseases contributed for 5.6% of causes andneoplasm for 2.1%. Rigors either single or in combination of chills was a majorsymptoms associated with fever (53.1%). Mean duration of hospitalization was 5.46days.Conclusion Infectious diseases was the commonest causes of fever in this study. “Nodiagnosis” was the second cause. This may be due to percentage of patients who leftagainst medical advice, left without informing doctors or nurses and discharged onrequest. The least diagnosis was neoplasms. IV fluid, paracetamol and antibiotics weremost common way of management. This is acceptable due to the predominance ofinfectious diseases especially bacterial infections but there are cases of viral infectionswhich has been treated by antibiotics.