III.1) STUDY DESIGN
This was a retrospective- descriptive cross sectional study.
III.2) DURATION OF THE STUDY
The study went on from the 1st December 2018 till
the 31st May 2019, a period of 6 months.
III.3) STUDY SETTING
This study was carried out at the Yaoundé
Gyneco-Obstetric and Pediatric hospital (YGOPH) at the pediatric unit. This
unit is composed of 3 sub units which are; Hospitalisation 1 and 2 of infants
and young children; External consultation with vaccination; and
Neonatalogy.Hospitalisation 1 has 6 rooms and hospitalisation 2 has 7 rooms
with one isolation room for contagious diseases. The unit is also made up of
instruments such as oxygen extractors (4), aspirators (2) and resuscitators
(2).
The service has an administration made of (1) head of service
and (2) deputy head of services ; medical doctors (12) that is paediatricians
(9) and general practitioners (3); State nurses (20) ; assistant nurses , and
cleaners.
III.4) SAMPLING
There was recruitment of files from a period of 1st
of January 2014 to the 31st of December 2018 of children admitted at
YGOPH who fulfilled the inclusion criteria.
III.5) STUDY POPULATION
Children from 1 month of age to 15 years admitted at the
paediatric unit of YGOPH within the study period.
III.5.1) INCLUSION CRITERIA
- Patients from 1 month of age to 15 years admitted for
bacterial meningitis at YGOPH
- Patients who had bacterial examination of CSF with
identification of the pathogen by culture or soluble antigen
- Patients who had their WBC above 10 cells/mm3.
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III.5.2) EXCLUSION CRITERIA
- Patients in whom bacterial meningitis has not been confirmed
through examination of csf by culture or soluble antigen
- Any file with incomplete information III.6) SAMPLE
SIZE
N=
d2
The sample size will be calculated using the Cochran's formula:
(??1-??:??)??P(1-P)
Where:
- Z1 - á: 2= is the standard normal
variate at 5% type I error (p<0,005),
- P= expected proportion in the population based on previous
studies or pilot studies, for this study, the proportion from NGUEFACK of
1.54%, 2014 was used [3].
-d= Absolute error or precision.
For our study the numerical application of the above formula was
used:
Z1 - á: 2=1.96; P=0.0514%; d=5%. Then
N=1.96*1.96*0.0154(1-
0.0154)/0.05*0.05=23.29
After plugging in all the information in the
equation, we get a minimum of 23files to collect and use.
III.7) MATERIALS
? Materials of data collection and analysis
o Registered files from the paediatric unit
o A laptop
o Microsoft® Office Excel 2016 and CS PRO 7.2
software for data analysis and Microsoft® Office Word 2016 to
keyboard the thesis.
o A 8 GB flash disk
o A 4 GB flash disk
o
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Office equipment
o Questionnaire for data collection
o Ballpoint ink-pens, pencils, correction fluid and eraser. ?
Human resources:
o The investigator
o Supervisor and co supervisors
o Collaborators (service of archives, paramedical and medical
personnel)
III.8) METHODS
III.8.1) ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORIZATIONS AND ETHICAL
CLEARANCE
Ethical clearance was obtained from the Ethical Committee of
the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Bamenda. Authorization to
carry-out the study at the YGOPH was obtained from the Director General of
YGOPH.
The recruited information's from the questionnaires was held
secret by the investigator in order to maintain data confidentiality taken
throughout the study, and was definitely destroyed through burning after the
data was analyzed and results confirmed.
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