Abstract: Infectious diseases such as H. pylori infection are major public health problems in Ethiopia. Even though there are a considerably large number of dyspeptic patients in Asella teaching and referral hospital, there is no study done to assess the trend of H. pylori infection among dyspeptic patients. The objective of this study was to assess a five years trend of H. pylori infection among dyspeptic patients in Asella teaching and referral hospital. A retrospective cross-sectional study design was used to assess the trend of H. pylori infection from January 1, 2013 until October 30, 2017 among dyspeptic patients by counting stool antigen test results from the laboratory log book. It was found that a total of 9,493 dyspeptic patients with the mean age of 33.9 (SD+15.1) years were test for H. pylori infection in the last five years in Asella teaching and referral hospital. The total prevalence of H. pylori was 1,444 (15.2%) in which 863 (59.8%) of them were females and 581 (40.2%) were males. There was a fluctuating trend of H. pylori with annual total cases of H. pylori ranged from 19.3% in 2017 to 6.1% in 2015. The study showed that there was low prevalence of H. pylori infection among dyspeptic patients in Asella teaching and referral hospital, Ethiopia. The low prevalence reported from this study could be also due to the quality of the test kits, therefore, there is a need to validate the test kits used by the hospital laboratory.Abstract: Infectious diseases such as H. pylori infection are major public health problems in Ethiopia. Even though there are a considerably large number of dyspeptic patients in Asella teaching and referral hospital, there is no study done to assess the trend of H. pylori infection among dyspeptic patients. The objective of this study was to assess a five y...Show More
