RESUMO
Introduction: although evidence suggests recent reductions in infant and child mortality, little is known about the magnitude, and causes of pediatrics admission, premature mortality, and associated years of potential life lost among hospitalized children in Ethiopia, particularly in Jimma City. Methods: a retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on hospital's care registries of pediatric patients who presented with acute disease over three years period, from September 7th, 2014, to September 10th, 2017, at Jimma Medical Canter and Shenen Gibe Hospital in Jimma City. The data were cleaned and imported to statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) V.23.0 for descriptive statistical analysis. Results: a total of 7612 children were admitted to two public hospitals in Jimma City during the study period. Among them, 4457(58.6%) were males. The mean (SD) age of the children at admission was 4.1± (4.25) years. The major cause of admission was pneumonia in 2274 (29.9 %) children. The major causes of premature mortality were Pneumonia 36 (22.1%), sepsis 25 (15.3%), and severe acute malnutrition 25 (15.3%). A total of 9633 years were lost due to premature deaths, of which the majority 7663 (79.6%) were attributed to communicable and nutritional diseases. Pneumonia was responsible for the highest proportion of years of life lost 2178 (22.1%). Conclusion: it is indicated that the leading causes of hospital admissions and deaths were communicable and nutritional diseases. A significant number of years of life have been lost because of preventable and curable diseases. Therefore, early detection and initiation of an appropriate intervention could reduce the hospital´s burden and years of potential life lost due to these diseases.
