Factors influencing the pattern of malnutrition among acutely ill children presenting in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria

Abstract

ntroduction: The bur-den of childhood malnutrition in Nigeria has remained unchanged for nearly a decade between the two Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS) of 2003 and 2008. The causes of malnutrition are complex and multifactorial. It results from the interplay of so-cioeconomic, dietary inadequacy and environmental factors. Objective: To describe factors that influence the pattern of malnutri-tion in acutely ill children in a tertiary Hospital in central Nige-ria. Methods: Cross sectional and descriptive study. Children aged 6 to 59 months presenting with acute illnesses to the paediatric emergency unit were concurrently recruited over a 7 month period, (April-October 2012). All had comprehensive clinical assess-ment done including anthropom-etric (weight, mid arm circumfer-ence, height/length) measure-ments and z-scores calculated for the individual nutritional charac-teristics. Results: A total of 379 children were recruited with a mean age of 21.7±13.9 months. There was no difference in the mean age be-tween male and female (P=0.8). The prevalence of wasting was (26.9%), (18%) for stunting and (18.9%) for underweight. The prevalence of severe wasting, WHz scores <-3SD was (5.9%), (5.4%) for stunting and (4.6%) for underweight. The highest preva-lence of wasting and stunting were in age groups 6-11 and 12-23 months, at 9.3% and 6.3% respec-tively. The factors associated with malnutrition included early intro-duction of complementary diets, number of children in the home, maternal illiteracy and lower so-cioeconomic status of the parents. Female children were commenced on complementary diets much ear-lier than male (P=0.01). Conclusion: This study demon-strates the association between childhood malnutrition and factors such as early initiation of comple-mentary diet, maternal illiteracy, number of children in the home and poor parental socioeconomic status