Risk factors for death in complicated diarrhoea of children.

A total of 1330 children with complicated diarrhoea who were admitted to the general ward of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh Health Complex, during 1979 were examined. The risk of death by complication of diarrhoea, aetiology, age, and nutritional state was analysed by a logit regression model. Serum sodium concentration and coma were found to be significant predictors of death, death being related directly to coma and inversely to serum sodium concentration. An earlier study had shown that the incidence of hyponatraemia was directly related to the degree of malnutrition, but the results of logit regression analysis did not show the nutritional state to be a predictor of death. Owing to lack of data, however, serum albumin concentration could not be taken as a variable in the logit regression analysis. To determine the relation of serum albumin concentration to hyponatraemia and the cause of death in hyponatraemia further prospective studies would be necessary.