Management of community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children: Clinical practice guidelines by the Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN)

Abstract

The Paediatric Association of Nigeria first published management guideline for com-munity-acquired pneumonia in 2015 and covered available evidence at that time. This update represents a review of available recent evidence state-ments regarding the management of pneumonia in children, while at the same time incorporating relevant materials from the first edition of the guideline. The guideline is developed to as-sist clinicians in the care of children with CAP. The recommendations provided in this guideline may not be the only approach to management, since there are con-siderable variations among children in the clinical course of CAP. The goal of this guideline is to reduce morbidity and mortality rate of CAP in children by providing recommendations that may be relevant in assisting clinicians to make timely diagnosis and institute appropriate antibiotic therapy of children with CAP. Summarized below are recommendations made in the new 2021 CAP guideline. As part of the rec-ommendations, the quality of the evidence is provided and the grade of the recommendation indicated. The details of the background, methods and evidence summaries that support each of these recommendations can be found in the full text of the guideline.