Adolescent’s hospital morbidity in Sfax – Tunisia

Abstract

Background : Adolescents present specific sanitary needs, linked to the physical and psychological mutations that occur during this vulnerable period of life. These needs remain little known in Tunisia.
But : To describe epidemiological profile of morbidity of teenagers hospitalized in Hedi Chaker’s hospital center of Sfax, during a period of 5 years, between 2003 and 2007.
Methods: Data exploitation of the descriptive survey of morbidity and mortality of hospitalized adolescents.
Results: During the study, 2963 adolescents of 10 to 19 years have been hospitalized (5.1 % of total of hospitalizations). Paediatrics received 36.9 % of adolescents. Paediatrics, haematology and infectious diseases’s services received 58.5 % of them. According to the groups of diagnosis, genitourinary and endocrine’s diseases,
dominate for girls, whereas infectious and parasitic diseases and tumors touched more boys. Diabetes, signs and general symptoms, leukaemia and anaemia, were the most frequent pathologies.
Conclusion : Taking care of teenagers is often parcelled out on several hospitable services. Therefore, the improvement of the greeting services, in order to answer the teenager’s relational needs home a temporary solution, while hoping, the setting up of units or specific services of adolescents that showed evidence of their utility for the development of the medicine of the teenagers in the industrialized countries.