Abstract:
Background: Despite the widespread national intervention strategies to curb its occurrence,
Pneumonia remains one of the leading causes of morbidity in Butaleja district. This was a crosssectional
study carried out at Busolwe Hospital and aimed at establishing the knowledge and perception of caregivers about risk factors and manifestations of childhood pneumonia and it's high
prevalence among the under-five children (U5C) in the district.
Methods: Structured researcher administered questionnaires were given to 302 caregivers of U5C
visiting the hospital who were enrolled on a continuous random basis from April to May 2018.
Microsoft Excel was used to retrieve and analyze the data which was then represented in form of
frequencies and proportions.
Results: The study found that the majority of caregivers had inadequate knowledge about the
condition, despite 69.5% of their U5C having suffered from pneumonia in the previous year.
Additionally, some of the contributing factors to the high prevalence of pneumonia included poor
ventilation in the houses, the presence of swamps contributing to coldness, failure to complete the
immunisation dose and overcrowding in the households leading to household air pollution.
Conclusion: Pneumonia remains a big health challenge in Butaleja District as evidenced by the
knowledge gap among caregivers as well other contributing factors which lead to its increased
prevalence. In order reduce the burden, a comprehensive community sensitisation program needs
to be rolled out to address most of the factors. It would also be important to look into the possible
misdiagnosis of the condition and rule out antibiotic resistance to come up with an effective
management strategy for curbing the high prevalence of pneumonia among the U5C in Butaleja
District. Finally, the establishment of a National Health Insurance Scheme is strongly recommended.
