A cross-sectional study of the clinical characteristics of hospitalized children with community-acquired pneumonia in eight eastern cities in China

Table 1 Characteristics of children hospitalised with pneumonia in the sampled hospitals

Characteristics	TCM hospitals		WM hospitals		χ²	P value
	Number (n = 598)	%	Number (n = 700)	%
Gender					3.75	0.05
Male	333	55.7	427	61.0
Female	265	44.3	273	39.0
Age, y					4.74	0.09
1-3	163	27.3	228	32.6
4-7	327	54.7	346	49.4
8-14	108	18.0	126	18.0
Previous medical history
Recurrent pneumonia^a	116	19.4	45	6.4	38.60	<0.01
Recurrent bronchitis^b	43	7.2	13	1.9	5.59	0.02
RURTI^c	78	13.0	54	7.7	17.33	<0.01
Eczema	73	12.2	57	8.1	2.42	0.12
Asthma^d	42	7.0	11	1.6	19.52	<0.01
Allergic rhinitis	48	8.0	8	1.1	30.75	<0.01

Abbreviations: TCM traditional Chinese medicine, WM Western medicine, RURTI recurrent upper respiratory tract infection, URTI upper respiratory tract infection.
^aRecurrent pneumonia is defined as at least two pneumonia episodes in a 1-year period or at least three episodes over a lifetime, with normal chest radiography between each episode [17].
^bRecurrent bronchitis is defined as in patients age 0–2 years, three or more bronchitis episodes in 1 year; age 3–14 years, two or more episodes in 1 year [17].
^cRURTI is defined as in patients age 0–2 years, seven or more episodes of URTI in 1 year; age 3–5 years, six or more episodes in 1 year; 6–14 years, five or more episodes of URTI in 1 year [10, 17].
^dIncludes cough-variant asthma.

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