Clinical and haematological profile of dengue among adult patients at a tertiary care hospital in Pokhara

Introduction Dengue is an important infectious disease. This disease is prevalent in the terai belts of Nepal mainly. But in the last few years, the cases are in increasing trend in the hilly areas of Nepal also. Hence this study was done in an aim to study the clinical and haematological profile of the dengue cases. Methods This was a retrospective cross-sectional quantitative study done at a tertiary teaching hospital of Pokhara, Nepal after obtaining ethical approval from the institutional ethical committee. The data of serologically confirmed dengue cases, during the period of August 2019 to December 2019, of age above 15 years, were collected and analysed using SPSS 20. Descriptive analysis in terms of mean, median, percentage as well as t-test for nominal and chi-square tests were used to compare different parameters. P-value≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Out of 922 patients, approximately one-half (50.5%) cases were seen during the month of September. Most (82.8%) were the inhabitants of Kaski district. Median age of presentation was 29 years with slightly more cases of males (52.4%). Three hundred and forty seven patients were admitted. Fever (96.5%) and headache (40.6%) were the most common symptoms on presentation of admitted cases. Leukopenia (55.3%) was more common than thrombocytopenia (47.6%) in the admitted cases. On comparison between admitted patients with warning signs and those without signs, no significant variation was seen in terms of age, total leukocyte count and total platelet count. Conclusion Dengue is common in young population. Fever, headache and gastrointestinal symptoms are common among dengue patients. Leukopenia and thrombocytopenia are common laboratory features of dengue.