Research Article Determinants of Oxygen Therapy in Childhood Pneumonia in a Resource-Constrained Region

License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Childhood pneumonia is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among underfives particularly in the resource-constraint part of the world. A high proportion of these deaths are due to lack of oxygen, thereby making oxygen administration a life-saving adjunctive when indicated. However, many primary health centres thatmanagemost of the cases often lack the adequatemanpower and facilities to decide which patient should be on oxygen therapy. Therefore, this study aimed to determine factors that predict hypoxaemia at presentation in children with severe pneumonia. Four hundred and twenty children aged from 2 to 59 months (40% infants) with severe pneumonia admitted to a health centre in rural Gambia were assessed at presentation. Eighty-one of them (19.30%) had hypoxaemia (oxygen saturation < 90%). Children aged 2–11 months, with grunting respiration, cyanosis, and head nodding, and those with cardiomegaly on chest radiograph were at higher risk of hypoxaemia