Background Respiratory Syncythial Virus (RSV) is a common lower respiratory tract viral infection. RSV and a wide variety of other respiratory viruses are common triggers for bronchiolitis.

Aim To determine the length of stay in infants with acute RSV bronchiolitis vs. Non-RSV.

Materials and methods A retrospective study was conducted at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). Infants and children ages 0 to 18 months hospitalised with acute bronchiolitis from October 2010 to March 2013 were included. The data collected: age at diagnosis, sex, direct fluorescent antibody (DFA) and length of stay.

Results The study included 838 infants, mean age 3.6(±3.5) months, and boys constituted 60%. DFA was conducted on 770 infant, where 352 Were RSV positive (45.7%), 142 were RSV negative (18.4%) and other non-RSV viruses (Adenoviurs, RhinoVirus, InfluenzaVirus, Parainflenzavirus, and Bocavirus)276 (35.8%). The mean length of stay for RSV-positive was 8.03 days, 95% C. I. (7.26–8.79), and 6.94 days, 95% C. I. (5.89–8.00) for RSV-negative compared to 9.76 days, 95%C. I. (8.31–11.21) for other non-RSV. The p value was 0.723 when comparing the length of stay in infants who tested positive RSV to those tested negative RSV, while the p-value was (0.059)when comparing RSV-positive to other non-RSV viruses. There was a statistically significance difference in length of stay for RSV negative compared to other non-RSV viruses (p = 0.010).

Conclusions Our data showed, there is no difference in length of stay in infants hospitalised with RSV-positive bronchiolitis compared to the group with RSV-negative;however the length of stay was statistically significant longer with Non-RSV viruses compared to RSV-negative infection.