Malnutrition in children admitted to Karbala pediatric teaching hospital : prevalence and associated risk factors

Abstract EN

Background : malnutrition is one of the most serious world health problems.

In Iraq the prevalence of chronic malnutrition among children under five has reached an average of 25 %.

Malnutrition is an outcome of various factors resulting from unfavorable socioeconomic circumstances.

Objective : to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of malnutrition in children less than 5 years of age admitted to Karbala Pediatric Teaching Hospital, Karbala.

Methods : A prospective observational survey.

All children from 6 months to 5 years of age admitted between January 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007, were screened for moderate to severe malnutrition.

A total of 1357 children who met the study criteria were enrolled.

Assessment of risk factors for child malnutrition was accomplished through a structured questionnaire used to interview parents and caretakers.

The anthropometric measurements were assessed according to standard techniques used to calculate z-scores for weight-for-age, weight-for-height and height-for-age.

As reference curve, the reference growth curves of the NCHS were used.

Results : During the study period a total of 19258 children were admitted to the pediatric wards about 12519 (65 %) of the admissions were in the age group 6–60 months.

Of this group, 1357 (10.83 %) were moderately to severely malnourished.

Overall 31.98 % of the study children were stunted, 4.347 % wasted and 22.33 % underweight for their age.

Stunting is low among infants aged 6–12 months (20.09 %) while about (44 %) of all children aged 13-60 months are classified as stunted.

Mothers ages bellow 20 years is a risk factor (50.27 %) of stunting.

Stunting was found to be higher among children of no education (or illiterate) mothers (51.21 %) compared higher education mothers 16.20 %.

The study revealed that (51.30 %) of the study children in large house hold were stunted as compared to (14.16 %) in small house hold.

Prevalence of underweight among children who were mixed feeding was (64.92 %) and (45.34 %) if more than 2 children under 5 in the family.

Conclusion : there is a high rate of malnutrition among children admitted in Karbala teaching hospital and there are several risk factors for stunting malnutrition.

Prominent risk factors include uneducated mothers, more than 2 children under 5, large house hold size, chronic illness and bottle feeding.

Most of the risk factors are preventable.