Asian Journal of Psychiatry | 2021
Efficacy of Prednisolone in Recovery from Acute Bronchiolitis: Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Abstract
Introduction: Acute bronchiolitis is a condition where patients are presenting with breathing difficulties, cough, poor feeding, and irritability. Treatment of bronchiolitis have many controversies. Most trials of bronchiolitis treatment suffer from 2 constraints: possible inclusion of patients with asthma and inconsistent outcome measures. The aim of the study was to determine the efficacy of prednisolone in recovery from acute bronchiolitis who have a family history of atopy. Material & Methods: This randomized double blind placebo controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in the department of pediatrics Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) from July 2008 to June 2010. Sixty (60) bronchiolitis patients having family history of atopy were included in his study. Prednisolone and placebo were packaged in identical envelops with separate code number given by the guide and the code number were recorded in a preformed questionnaire. The trial was so planned that neither the parents nor the investigator were aware of group allocation. The collected data were analyzed thoroughly by SPSS program version of 16.0 software. Informed written consent from parents or legal guardians was taken and ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical review committee of Dhaka Medical College to conduct the research works. Results: In our study, mean age of the patients of this series were 3.68 months (±1.29SD) and 3.52 month’s (±1.1SD) in prednisolone and placebo group respectively. Use of accessory muscle score was assessed twice at 8 am and 8 pm each day for three days. On first assessment at day 1 the score was similar in both the treatment groups (P>.05). More people in Prednisolone arm recovered within 3 days then the placebo group. The difference is statistically significant (P<.01). Conclusion: Three-day oral prednisolone treatment was effective in accelerating clinical recovery (Fast breathing, use of accessory muscle, wheezing) in acute bronchiolitis cases who had family history of atopy.