Introduction:

Community-acquired pneumonia continues to be a global health problem.

Objective:

Characterize from the clinical-epidemiological perspective community-acquired pneumonia in the pediatric ages.

Methods:

Descriptive cross-sectional and prospective study of patients from 1 month to 18 years old not vaccinated with pneumococcal vaccine, admitted in Centro Habana Pediatric Hospital from January 2018 to July 2019 with diagnosis confirmed by radiology of pneumonia acquired in the community. Patients did not have chronic diseases, except for asthma. Parents or guardians consented. Demographic and clinical variables, risk factors, evolution and complications were assessed according to the age group.

Results:

277 patients were studied, children from 1 to 4 years old predominated (39.4 %); there was male superiority (55.2 %). The most common symptoms were fever (98.9 %), dyspnea (99.3 %), cough (98.9 %) and decreased vesicular murmur (96.4 %). As risk factors, attendance to nurseries (31.8 %), inadequate breastfeeding (23.8 %) and passive smoking (16.6 %) predominated. There were complications in 110 children (39.7 %) with prevalence of pleural effusion, especially in pre-schoolers and significant association among complications and age. There were no deaths.

Conclusions:

Monitoring of pneumonia and its epidemiological clinical development is important for prevention and diagnosis at this stage prior to the introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine. In populations not vaccinated against pneumococcus, it is a significant strategy to reduce modifiable risk factors such as insufficient breastfeeding, passive smoking and malnutrition.

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