Background and rationale: Acute otitis externa is a disease that significantly affects the life and health of people, mostly caused by bacteria, fungi, virus and irritation from chemicals. Besides that, it can also be caused by trauma such as ear picking, spinning ears, swimmer’s ear and wiping the ear too hard, and if not treated in time serious complications are possible. Objective: To study the risk factors associated with acute otitis externa at the ENT Department, Mahosot Hospital. Methodology: This study was cross-sectional, descriptive study among patients with ear-ache and acute otitis externa. Data were collected by using questionnaire interviewed face to face and by ear examination. The data were entered into Epi-data and analyzed by using SPSS software. Results: Of 186 participants, 62.9% had otitis externa, with a mean (95%CI) age of 32 (01-76) years. The commonest age group was those aged less than 15 years old with 29%. Males were 1.88 times more likely to present with otitis externa than females. Occupational groups at risk of disease are farmers/laborers/ housewife/others and those living in rural areas was 2.7 times having acute otitis externa. Those who had swum or had travelled in the forest and ear picking had a higher frequency of acute otitis externa (1.6 times) and patients who regularly cleaned their ears with a cotton swab were 1.39 times of having otitis externa and some patients who used hair clip for ear picking had a higher frequency of acute otitis externa (2.44 times). Conclusion Most of patients have common clinical manifestations of which are tinnitus, earache, swelling or redness of the ears, hearing loss and itching. Demographic characteristics, history, and ear health care behaviors are associated with acute otitis external.

Background: Worldwide, diarrhea is a common disease in children and is a problem that causes many children to become sick and die. Diarrhea is found to be the leading cause of death of children under 5 years of age, with 700,000 cases per year worldwide. The incidence of diarrhea is increasing in Laos. Objective: To study oral rehydration and intravenous fluid therapy in children under 5 years of age with acute diarrhea with some dehydration in the Emergency Department of the Children’s Hospital, Vientiane, Lao PDR. Methodology: This was cross-sectional descriptive study; data were collected by using questionnaire interview by doctors. The data entered by Epi-data with analysis by SPSS. Results: Among 90 participants it was found that anxiety or irritability, sunken eyes, nausea, vomiting and flatulence were statistically significantly associated with outcome of treatment (p-value <0.05). More than half of the patients are male (52.2%), aged between 1-2 years and most (83.3%) had normal BMI values. In addition, 44.4% had a history of diarrhea for 2 days with 4 to 5 times a day in 34.4% and stools were watery in 57.8%. A number of participants (47.8%) had a history of previous diarrhea before the current illness and most of them had had it 3 times a year (41.9%). When comparing between oral rehydration and intravenous fluid therapy it was found that the children had no symptoms of anxiety or irritable (in 97.8% vs 77.8%), children with sunken eyes (in 91.1% vs 71.1%), children with vomiting (in 100% vs 64.4%) and children with flatulence (in 97.8% vs 80.0%). Excessive thirst and decreased skin turgor were not statistically different between before and after rehydration therapy (p-value >0.05). Conclusion The outcome of treatment with intravenous fluids was better than oral rehydration since former decreased vomiting, shortened hospital stays, lowered the costs and increase more parents ‘satisfaction. The oral dehydration therapy often increased the symptoms of flatulence.