A study identified the incidence of different types of dehydration clinically in acute watery diarrhea (mild, moderate and severe) along with serum sodium level (isonatraemic, hyponatraemic, hypernatraemic) at presentation in hospital.

It was a Prospective observational study carried out during admission on children below 5years of age with acute watery diarrhea. Dehydration was clinically categorized to be mild, moderate and severe. 

Roche cobas autoanalyzer (indirect ISE method) was utilized to estimate the level of serum sodium in the patients during admission and categorized as- isonatraemic / hyponatraemic/ hypernatraemic dehydration. 

Exclusion of children with dysentery or diarrhea more than 7 days duration, iv fluids administration, presence of any metabolic disease/chronic medical condition was done.

The results obtained were as follows-

• 68 patients were enrolled for the study
• 64.7% of the participants were males.
• 42.6% of patients fell in 1-2 years of age.
• 66.17% of total cases suffered from moderate dehydration among which 57.7% reported isonatraemic dehydration.
• 33.8% of all cases suffered from severe dehydration among which 60.8% reported hyponatraemic dehydration.
• No hypernatraemic dehydrated patients were found among severe dehydration / appropriate ORS or plain water groups.
• Appropriate oral rehydration therapy was noted in only 14.7% of the cases, among which 60% had isonatraemic dehydration.
• 17.65% of patients who were on concentrated ORS had 75% isonatraemic dehydration.
• 26.47% of patients who were on diluted ORS had 55.5% isonatraemic dehydration.

Thus it was concluded that about two-third of the diarrhea patients show moderate dehydration, with the majority having a isonatraemic dehydration and a very few patients among them receive appropriate ORS therapy. So they urged the need to educate society about proper domiciliary treatment (appropriate fluid/ORS solution) in case of diarrhea.

Source: International Journal of Pediatric Research, 2018;5(10)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17511/ijpr.2018.i10.05