[Mothers' attitudes and behaviors regarding vaccination in the outpatient clinic of Hospital Robert Reid Cabral]. / Actitudes, practicas de las madres sobre la vacunacion en la consulta externa del Hospital Robert Reid Cabral.

PIP: Concern over relatively low rates of vaccination in the Dominican Republic prompted a study of the attitudes and practices of mothers attending outpatient clinics at a children's hospital in Santo Domingo. 200 mothers were prospectively interviewed in late 1991. 57% of the children were incompletely vaccinated and 7.5% were completely unvaccinated. 98.5% of the mothers stated their belief that vaccination protects children. 125 of the mothers reported they had access to orientation about vaccination. 80% of the children whose mothers had received orientation were completely vaccinated, compared to only 18.7% of children whose mothers had not received orientation. 9% of the study mothers had children who died of diseases preventable by vaccination, primarily measles. Only 59% of the children of sample mothers had been vaccinated against measles.^ieng

[Incidence of measles with complications]. / Incidencia de sarampion complicado.

PIP: Measles is caused by a virus which exclusively affects humans. Erroneously it has been considered benign, although it causes high morbidity and mortality because of the complications it precipitates. The Expanded Program of Immunization estimated that 1.5 million children in the world die every year because of measles. The objective was to analyze the incidence of measles and complicated measles in children who had been admitted to Dr. Robert Reid Cabral Pediatric Clinic, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, during the period of January 1991 to January 1992. A total of 311 patients were enrolled with the diagnosis of measles during the 13 months of the study, with an average of 24 cases per month. October and December were the months when most patients presented with measles: respectively, 56 (18%) and 60 (19.4%) patients of the total caseload. Pneumonia was the most frequent complication with 277 cases (87.1%), followed by acute diarrheal disease with 25 cases (8.0%). The most affected was the 1-3 year age group with 143 patients (46.0%). In 135 cases (43.4%) the children with measles had not been vaccinated; only 72 patients (23.3%) had received vaccination. Furthermore, 104 patients (33.3%) did not know their vaccination history. 170 patients (54.7%) were malnourished. During the study period 37 children (11.9%) died in the hospital and 24 of these children (64.9%) died as a result of the complication of pneumonia. Other causes of death were: laryngotracheitis (4), encephalitis (3), subcutaneous emphysema (4), and septicemia (2). This investigation showed that pneumonia is a very grave complication in malnourished children and in children under one year of age.^ieng

Etiologia bacteriana de la diarrea aguda / Bacterial etiology of acute diarrhea

Se investiga la frecuencia de relacion entre diarrea y bacterias enteropatogenas, encontrandose un 45% de casos con crecimiento de bacterias enteropatogenas, los cuales fueron E.coli (42.7%), shiguellas (2.1%),salmonellas (1%).Se establecen relaciones con la edad, sexo, gravedad, sintomatologia, estado economico y los elementos basicos de salud ambiental de los pacientes.}