Determinants of stunting incidence in toddlers age 24-59 months based on the epidemiological triangle in the working area of the Nambo Health Center, Kendari City, 2023

Abstract

Background: The incidence of stunting in the Nambo sub-district is included in the top five highest stunting prevalence rates in Kendari City out of ten sub-districts. This study focuses on toddlers in coastal areas in Kendari City. This study aims to determine the relationship between host factors (gender, birth weight, exclusive breastfeeding, mother's employment status, mother's level of knowledge, family income), agent factors, history of infectious diseases, environment factors (access to clean water and availability of latrines) with incidence of stunting aged 24–59 months. Method: This study was conducted directly in the field using observational analytics using quantitative research with a cross-sectional research design with the aim of determining whether there is a relationship between sex factors, birth weight, exclusive breastfeeding, mother's employment status, mother's level of knowledge, family income, history of toddler infectious diseases, access to clean water and latrine availability facilities with the incidence of stunting in the working area of the Nambo Health Center in Kendari City in 2023. The sampling technique of this study is probability sampling using stratified random sampling, which is a sampling technique taken by random stratification (based on strata) with a total sample of 248 toddlers. Results: The variable results showed that for host factors related were birth weight (ρ-Value = 0.000), exclusive breastfeeding (ρ-Value = 0.009) and maternal knowledge level (ρ-Value = 0.003), while the unrelated were the sex of the toddler (ρ-Value = 0.108), mother's employment status (ρ-Value = 0.362 ), family income ( ρ-Value = 0.367), agent factor has no relationship between history of infectious disease (ρ-Value = 0.130), environmental factors have no relationship between access to clean water (ρ-Value = 1.000) and latrine availability facilities (ρ-Value = 0.491) with the incidence of stunting in toddlers. Conclusion: there is a relationship between birth weight, exclusive breastfeeding and maternal knowledge level with the incidence of stunting and there is no relationship between gender, maternal employment status, family income, history of infectious diseases, access to clean water and means of availability of latrines with the incidence of stunting.