Comparison of Mean Hospital Stay after Nebulization with 3% Hypertonic Saline vs Salbutamol in Treatment of Bronchiolitis

Abstract

Abstract: Background: With an estimated prevalence of 33% in children age >2years and owing to 1 in 10th cause of hospitalization in children, Bronchiolitis is a major factor for morbidity and mortality. Varying nebulization doses have been shown to produce different clinical outcomes in patients with bronchiolitis.

Objective: To compare mean hospital stay after nebulization with 3% hypertonic saline compared to the salbutamol among patients of bronchiolitis

Materials and Methods: This was a randomized control study done at pediatric medicine ward, Services Hospital, Lahore. The study was done during 8th May 2018 to 8th November 2018. Data was collected from 68 children of age >3 months to < 2 years of both genders i.e. (34 in each group) fulfilling inclusion criteria. SPSS software was used for data entry and analysis. For quantitative variables age, mean and standard deviation were used whereas for qualitative variables like gender, frequency and percentages were used. Independent sample t-test was used for comparing mean hospital stay among the two groups taking p-value<0.05 as significant.

Result: Average age in Salbutamol group was 1.06 ± 0.50 years and in Hypertonic solution mean age was 1.24 ± 0.55 years. There was significant difference in mean hospital stay with relatively lesser in hypertonic solution vs the Salbutamol group [3.18 ± 1.11 vs 4.44 ± 1.08 ; p-value <0.001]. Upon post-stratification analysis, the mean hospital stay was found to be significantly lower in the Hypertonic group vs. Salbutamol group with respect to age, gender and the duration of the disease (p-values<0.05 for all).

Conclusion: This study concludes that the mean hospital stay was statistically lower in the hypertonic solution group vs the Salbutamol group. Moreover, the clinical efficacy of the hypertonic saline can be utilized in future to gain early recovery of Bronchiolitis and hence it can reduce the hospital stay and related cost.