Hypomagnesaemia in children under five years of age having acute diarrhea.

Objective: To determine the frequency of hypomagnesaemia in children under five year of age having acute diarrhea. Study Design: Descriptive Cross Sectional study. Setting: Department of Pediatric Medicine, Rashid Latif Medical College / Arif Memorial Teaching Hospital, Lahore. Period: August 2019 to January 2020. Material & Methods: A total of 96 children aged between 6 months to five years having acute diarrhea and duration of illness <14 days were enrolled. All the patients were subjected to measurement of serum magnesium level. The proportion of hypomagnesaemia was analyzed in acute diarrhea. The effect modifier and confounding variables were controlled through stratification of data on duration of illness less as < 14 days and more than 14 days, age as < 2 year or > 2 year and weight as < 2SD or > 2SD on weight for age chart. Chi square test was applied considering p value < 0.05 as significant. Results: Our study comprised of 96 patients having acute diarrhea, of these 96 study cases, 62 (64.6%) were boys and 34 (35.4%) were girls. Mean age of our study cases was 19.25±15.71 months. Mean weight of study cases was 9.56±3.01 kg. Mean duration of illness was 5.74 ± 3.26 days. Mean Serum Magnesium level was 1.63 ± 0.32 mg/dl (ranging from 1.0 mg/dl to 2.8 mg/dl). Hypomagnesaemia was present in 47 (49%) cases. Conclusion: High frequency of hypomagnesaemia was observed in children under 5 years of age having acute diarrhea. Duration of illness had significant impact on hypomagnesaemia. Serum magnesium levels must be regularly monitored in children with acute diarrhea.