Hypophosphatemia in critically ill children

Introduction: Hypophosphatemia is a common disorder in critically ill patients, and is associated with myasthenia, especially in respiratory muscles, and respiratory infections. This study was conducted to describe the prevalence of hypophosphatemia in children hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of Children’s Hospital in Tabriz, Iran, in 2014-2015. Methods: In this descriptive study, medical records of all children admitted to the PICU of the children’s university hospital affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences were collected from archives of the hospital from 2014-2015 upon adopting permission. The medical records were examined in terms of demographic information, clinical diagnosis of the disease, serum phosphate level, nutritional status, therapeutic interventions, and other underlying specifications. The data were analyzed using SPSS software and descriptive tests. Results: Of the 83 eligible medical records, 45 records belonged to boys, and 38 records belonged to girls. The most prevalent and the least prevalent diseases in these children were acute pulmonary disease (57.8%) and septic shock (1.2%) respectively. Regarding the nutritional status, 38.6% of the children suffered malnutrition. Phosphorus deficiency was prevalent in the first day in 10.8% of the children, and abnormal levels of phosphorus were observed from the fourth to the sixth day in 26.5% of the children, which increased to 34.9% from the seventh to the tenth day. Conclusion: This study showed no statistically significant correlation between sex and prevalence of hypophosphatemia. Type of disease was not significantly associated with the level of phosphorus. Moreover, the patients’ nutritional status was not significantly associated with the prevalence of hypophosphatemia.