MENINGITIS IN CHILDREN: FREQUENCY OF MENINGITIS WITH FIRST EPISODE OF FEBRILE SEIZURE.

INTRODUCTION: Seizures in children related to fever are most frequent type of febrile seizures and most important cause of hospital admissions throughout world. They affect 2-5% of population between the age of 06 months to 05 years. A seizure accompanied by fever without any evidence of intracranial infection, metabolic disturbance or previous history of a febrile seizures is called First simple febrile seizures (FSFS) and present within 12 hours after the seizure in children. The seizures that are generalized lasting less than 15 minutes and occurring once in 24 hours are called simple seizures and focal seizures lasting more than 15 minutes and recurrent in 24 hours are called complex seizures. OBJECTIVE: Determination of frequency of meningitis in subjects presenting with first febrile seizure. Study Design: This was a cross sectional study Setting: Pediatric medicine, Peoples Medical College Hospital, Nawabshah.Duration of Study: this study was conducted from 7th November 2017 to 6th may 2018.Subject and Methods: Current study was performed next to approval from hospital ethical review committee. The subjects who visited to the department of Paediatrics, Civil Hospital and fulfilling the inclusion criterion were recruited in this study. An informed written consent from parents was obtained. Demographics (name, age and contact) will also be obtained. Temperature of every child was taken from axilla for one minute. The diagnosis of meningitis in subjects was based on clinical presentation (fever and seizure) with CSF examination as per operational definitions. The inclusion and exclusion criterion were followed strictly to control the bias and effect modifiers. Results: Out ofthe191 patients, 131 (68.6%) male and 60 (31.4%) were female with mean age 19.5±3.34 months and 31(16.2%) subjects were diagnosed to have meningitis. Conclusion: it was concluded that in children who presented with FS the frequency of bacterial meningitis was not high and was more common under age of 18 months. Key Words: Febrile seizure, CSF, Lumbar puncture, Meningitis, Bacterial Meningitis