MALNUTRITION AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG CHILDREN

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of malnutrition and its associated factors among childrenunder two years of age.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was accomplished at Dr. Ruth K.M Pfau CivilHospital and Dow University Hospital (DUH), Karachi, for six months, from June 2019 to November 2019. Admitted children under two years of age diagnosed with malnutrition, underweight,stunted children, and children’s mothers willing to consent were invited to the study. Participantswere approached for data collection through the non-probability convenience sampling method.An adopted, validated questionnaire was used for data collection. A chi-square test was utilizedto determine the association between demographic variables and the outcome variable (malnutrition). P-value ≤ 0.05 was counted as signifi cant.Results: Out of total 307, the mean age of the children was 13.36 months with an SD of 5.878.The mean of children age 6-59 months in the house was 4.90 with SD of 2.234 and the meanfamily size was 10.68, with an SD of 3.38. There was almost the same number of both gendersof study children. Most child mothers (96.1%) were married and housewives, respectively. Therewere 56.4% of children found as malnutrition. It was found that mothers' level of education,mother's occupation, source of feeding, child immunization, and the child suff ering from diarrheaand vomiting were statistically signifi cantly associated with the malnutrition status of childrenp-values ≤ 0.05.