Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Aug 8, 2016; 5(3): 301-305
Published online Aug 8, 2016. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v5.i3.301
Prevalence of recent immunisation in children with febrile convulsions
Leya Motala, Guy D Eslick
Leya Motala, Guy D Eslick, Whiteley-Martin Research Centre, Discipline of Surgery, Nepean Hospital, the University of Sydney, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia
Author contributions: Motala L and Eslick GD acquired, analysed, and interpreted the data; Motala L and Eslick GD drafted the manuscript; Eslick GD did statistical analysis; Eslick GD is the guarantor of the study; He had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis; Eslick GD organised the study concept and design.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by our Ethics Committee.
Informed consent statement: The study was reviewed and approved by our Ethics committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Data sharing statement: No data were created so no data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Guy D Eslick, Professor, Whiteley-Martin Research Centre, Discipline of Surgery, Nepean Hospital, the University of Sydney, Clinical Building, Level 3, P.O. Box 63, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. guy.eslick@sydney.edu.au
Telephone: +61-2-47341373 Fax: +61-2-47343432
Received: January 25, 2016
Peer-review started: January 26, 2016
First decision: March 24, 2016
Revised: May 3, 2016
Accepted: July 11, 2016
Article in press: July 13, 2016
Published online: August 8, 2016
Abstract

AIM: To determine the prevalence of recent immunisation amongst children under 7 years of age presenting for febrile convulsions.

METHODS: This is a retrospective study of all children under the age of seven presenting with febrile convulsions to a tertiary referral hospital in Sydney. A total of 78 cases occurred in the period January 2011 to July 2012 and were included in the study. Data was extracted from medical records to provide a retrospective review of the convulsions.

RESULTS: Of the 78 total cases, there were five medical records which contained information on whether or not immunisation had been administered in the preceding 48 h to presentation to the emergency department. Of these five patients only one patient (1.28% of the study population) was confirmed to have received a vaccination with Infanrix, Prevnar and Rotavirus. The majority of cases reported a current infection as a likely precipitant to the febrile convulsion.

CONCLUSION: This study found a very low prevalence of recent immunisation amongst children with febrile convulsions presenting to an emergency department at a tertiary referral hospital in Sydney. This finding, however, may have been distorted by underreporting of vaccination history.

Keywords: Prevalence, Immunisation, Febrile convulsion, Adverse event, Vaccination

Core tip: This study found a very low prevalence of recent immunisation amongst children with febrile convulsions. This finding, however, may have been distorted by underreporting of vaccination history. The use of large linked datasets may determine a more accurate estimate of the rate of febrile convulsions due to immunisation.