Factors Associated with Occurence of Gut Perforation in Kagando Hospital, Kasese Ditrict

Abstract

Introduction Gut perforation had turned out to be an epidemic in Kasese district between 2007 and 2009. In 2011, 600 patients were treated with gut perforation and 120 of them died while 480 were discharged. It is from this background that the researcher decided to carry out a study and compare with what other scholars had found concerning the gut perforations.

General objective The main objective of this study was to identify the key factors associated with gut perforation among patients seeking health care services at Kagando hospital.

Methodology A community-based case-control study was done in which 57 cases who had been managed at the hospital for gut perforation were studied. Cases still admitted in the hospital wards were not available for interview by the time of study and therefore had to identify cases from the hospital records for patients worked on during the period of interest for the study and follow them to their homes. 57 neighbors to the cases living in the same environment not suffering or having suffered from gut perforations were interviewed and included in the sample as control cases. Data was collected using questionnaires while descriptive, bivariate and multi-variate analysis was done.

Results Male gender (OR=3.02, CI=1.10-8.28, P=0.031) and typhoid fever (OR=29.88, CI=3.58-249, P=0.002) were significantly associated with gut perforation at multivariate analysis.

Conclusion This study showed that being male and having a history of typhoid fever were significantly associated with gut perforation. I recommend therefore that whenever a patient is diagnosed with typhoid fever they should seek medical care as early as possible before it complicates to gut perforation. Community health workers need to put more efforts in health education and sanitation.