Abstract
BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic disorder in the pediatric population. Globally the incidence of diabetes increased from 11.3 million (95% UI 10.6-12.1) in 1990 to 22.9 million (21.1-25.4) in 2017, with a 102.9% increase and there was a 3% increase in diabetes mortality rates by age between 2000 and 2019. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess the pattern of initial presentation of pediatric diabetes mellitus, treatment outcome, and its predictors among pediatrics who attended service at selected public hospitals in southern Ethiopia from 2015 to 2019. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 422 randomly selected pediatrics from October 1st, 2021 to December 30, 2021, and participants were selected randomly from 8 randomly selected public hospitals in southern Ethiopia after proportional to client flow allocation of samples. Data was extracted from clients' charts using a data extraction checklist. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24, and logistic regression analysis were applied to determine the presence of an association between dependent and independent variables, and significance was declared at p-value <0.05. RESULTS: In this study, most (74.6%) of the pediatrics initially presented with Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This study found that Two-thirds (67.1%) of the respondents in the study had a good treatment outcome. In this study residence, presenting signs and symptoms; poly symptoms and weight loss, history of hospitalization, and comorbidity were predictors of treatment outcome of pediatric diabetes mellitus. CONCLUSION: Diabetes mellitus with Diabetic ketoacidosis is the predominant pattern of initial presentation in the study. The magnitude of poor treatment outcomes of diabetes mellitus among pediatrics in this study is high and unacceptable Residence, signs, and symptoms at initial presentation, history of hospitalization, and comorbidity were found to be significant independent predictors of treatment outcome of pediatric diabetes mellitus.