Abdominal pain and asthenia as common clinical features in hospitalized children for giardiasis

Giardiasis is a disease with worldwide distribution, although its prevalence differs from country to country. In order to investigate the clinical pattern of giardiasis in in-patient children, a case–control study was carried out. In-patient children who had Giardia lamblia infection were compared with non Giardia-infected children, focusing only on 4 clinical manifestations: diarrhoea, abdominal pain, asthenia and vomiting. In multivariable analysis, abdominal pain (odds ratio [OR] 4.71, 95% confidence intervals [CI] 2.66–8.32) and asthenia (OR 3.30, 95% CI 1.16–9.37) had positive and independent associations with Giardia infection. The present study supports the potential role of G. lamblia in abdominal pain in children who attend- and are admitted- to a hospital in Havana City, and highlights the importance to keep abdominal pain and asthenia in mind in hospital admitted children in the event of an association with an evocative epidemiological context.