Table 3. Care-seeking and clinical progression after recruitment, by blood oxygen level, prospective cohort study of survival in children with hypoxaemia and/or hypoglycaemia on referral, Malawi, 2019–2020.
| Group | No. in group | Children who received further care,a no. (%) | Hours to receipt of further care,b median (IQR) | SpO2, % |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median (IQR) |
P c | |||||
| At study recruitment | At subsequent facility | |||||
| All children | 826 | 344 (41.7) | 5.0 (2.9–8.0) | 97 (94–98) | 97 (95–98) | 0.060 |
| Normoxaemic childrend | 637 | 239 (37.5) | 5.2 (3.3–11.3) | 98 (96–98) | 97 (95–98) | 0.121 |
| Moderately hypoxaemic childrend | 108 | 55 (50.9) | 4.2 (3.2–7.0) | 92 (91–93) | 95 (90–97) | 0.006 |
| Severely hypoxaemic childrend | 71 | 45 (63.4) | 3.3 (2.0–5.4) | 84 (75–87) | 92 (87–96) | < 0.001 |
| Children with missing data | 10 | 5 (50.0) | 17.6 (7.1–28.3) | ND | 96 (95–96) | NA |
IQR: interquartile range; NA: not applicable; ND: not determined; SpO2: peripheral blood oxygen saturation.
a Further care included both hospital admission (306 children) and outpatient care at a hospital or health-care facility (38 children).
b The time from recruitment to presentation at the first subsequent facility.
c Medians were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
d Definitions of normoxaemia and hypoxaemia are given in Box 1.