Prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among children aged 6-59 months in Kizinda Suburb Bushenyi-Ishaka Municipality
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Date
2018-10
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Kampala International University, School of Health Sciences
Abstract
Background: Globally, approximately 151 million children under 5 suffer from stunting and in 2017, nearly 51 million children under 5 were wasted. In Uganda, child malnutrition is one of the most serious public health problems and among the highest in the world with about 28.9% stunted and 3.6 % wasted in 2015. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify prevalence of malnutrition and determine the associated factors for malnutrition among children under the age of 5 years among children in Kizinda suburb, Bushenyi-Ishaka municipality.
Methods: A community base cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Data collection was done using a pretested questionnaire and the Emergency Nutrition Assessment software version 2015 was used to generate z-scores and the Weight for Height Z-scores (WHZ) were generated using WHO 2005 Growth Standards. The data was then exported to IBM SPSS version 25 for analysis.
Results: Malnutrition was found to be at 31.9% (n=135) and factors associated with malnutrition were, sex of the child where, female children were 4 times likely to be malnourished than boys (P=0.002; OR=3.620; 95%CI=1.560-8.385). Birth weight was statistically associated with malnutrition (P=<0.001; X2=18.19) and a child with small birth weight had a 4 times risk of being malnourished (OR=3.620; 95%CI=1.561-8.385). Results further showed that children who had no history of illness had reduced risk of being malnourished have (OR=0.276; 95%CI=0.119-0.641). Both caretaker’s education level and occupation were statistically significant at (P=<0.001, X2 =20.09) and (P=<0.001, X2=17.94) respectively.
Conclusion and recommendations: This study found out that prevalence of malnutrition was high (31.9%). Among the factors that were investigated, sex of the child, birth weight, history of infectious disease, caretaker’s education and occupation were all significantly associated with malnutrition. A strong nutrition specific and sensitive intervention should be implemented in the study area with a special focus on supporting housewives, promoting education on child feeding and nutrition
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Clinical Medicine and Dentistry in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery of Kampala International University
Keywords
Malnutrition, Children, Kizinda, Bushenyi district