ABSTRACT
Background: Fever is one of the commonest and thrombocytopenia is one of the common clinical problems in children. The current study was done with the aim to identify the frequency and the etiology of thrombocytopenia in febrile children. This study was planned to identify epidemiological observations associated with pediatric fever and with febrile thrombocytopenia children, in this area among hospitalized children.Methods: A sample of 530 children of age 6 months to 18 years were studied. Febrile children were taken as cases (n=268) and afebrile children as controls (n=262). Demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics were measured and compared between the cases and controls.Results: Significant proportion of 1-3 years age group of children belong to febrile group compared to afebrile group. There is no significant difference in the gender, region, WFH or BMI, WFA, HFA between febrile and afebrile children. No significant difference in pulse rate, respiratory rate; TLC, ALC, ANC, Hb; Widal test or CRP was noted between pyrexial and apyrexial children. The median platelet count, in the pyrexial group is significantly lower than that of apyrexial group. Prevalence of thrombocytopenia in pyrexial group is significantly more than that observed in apyrexial group. The commonest illness in pyrexial group is non-bacterial-probable viral illness (59.7%). In the apyrexial group the common diseases are neurological (36.6%) disorders.Conclusions: Prevalence of thrombocytopenia is 11.45% in febrile children and in afebrile children it is 2.38%. In this study, viral infections and neurological disorders are the commonest etiology in febrile group and afebrile children respectively.