Abstract:
Background: Pneumonia is a kind of acute respiratory infection that affects the lungs. pneumonia was the biggest cause of mortality in children under the age of five years.
Objective: The aim of the study is to identify factors that can affect the respiratory rate,
pulse rate and oxygen saturation of under-five pneumonia patients admitted at Jimma University Medical Center,Jimma, Ethiopia, using multivariate longitudinal analysis.
Methods: This study used secondary data extracted from patient chart follow-up format as
a data extraction tool. Hospital based retrospective cohort study was conducted from October
01, 2022 up to March 30, 2023. A univariate linear mixed-effects model and the multivariate
linear mixed model, was fitted to identify the covariates which have significant effect on the
mean change of respiratory rate, pulse rate and oxygen saturation measurements over time
separately and jointly respectively.
Results: On average, both respiratory rate and pulse rate show a decreasing pattern over
time, whereas oxygen saturation shows an increasing pattern over time. pneumonia patients
who had comorbidity diseases significantly increased the average of respiratory rate and pulse
rate, while it decreased the average of oxygen saturations as compared to pneumonia patients
who had no comorbidity diseases. Patients who have mild-severe and severe pneumonia at the
baseline increase the average values of respiratory rate and pulse rate. whereas , decreases the
average values of oxygen saturation as compared to non-severe pneumonia patients. As the
visiting time increases, the average values of respiratory rate and pulse rate decreased, whereas
the average value of oxygen saturation increased through visit time.
Conclusion: The multivariate mixed effects model result indicates that time , presence of comorbidity and severity status are significant factors for average respiratory rate,pulse rate and
oxygen saturation. When the multivariate joint model is compared with the separate model,
the multivariate joint model fitted the data better than the separate model. Health professionals should give attention to pneumonia patients who had comorbidity of diseases in the ward.
