Abstract
BackgroundIn Ethiopia, the health sector has increased its efforts to enhance good nutritional practices through health education, treatment of extremely malnourished children and provision of micronutrients for mothers and children. But, the poor nutritional status of women and children continues to be still a major public health problem.MethodsA retrospective cohort study was conducted to assess the treatment outcome and associated factors of severe acute malnutrition among a total of 253 children age 6–59 months old. Severe acute malnutrition registration logbook and patient charts were used as a source of data. Data were entered in to Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. To identify associated factors, Cox proportional hazard analysis was computed and p-value <0.05 at 95% confidence interval was considered as statistically significant.ResultsThe recovery rate was 77.9% and the overall median recovery time was 11 days. Those children age from 24 to 35 months had 34% lower probability of recovery from SAM compared to 6–11 months old children (AHR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.35–0.89). Children whose ages from 36 to 59 months had 47% lower probability of recovery from SAM compared to 6–11 months old children (AHR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.31–0.91). HIV negative children had 2.48 times higher probability of getting recovered from SAM compared to HIV positive children (AHR = 2.48, 95% CI: 1.23–5.01). Children who didn’t take folic acid supplement had 65% lower probability of recovery from SAM compared to children who took folic acid supplement (AHR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.14–0.89).ConclusionsThis study found that recovery rate of 6–59 months old children treated for severe acute malnutrition in therapeutics units was in acceptable range based on the WHO recommendation. Folic acid supplementation and screening for HIV status should be promoted at all levels of health facilities during early age.
Highlights
In Ethiopia, the health sector has increased its efforts to enhance good nutritional practices through health education, treatment of extremely malnourished children and provision of micronutrients for mothers and children
During the multivariate Cox regression analysis; age group, Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status and folic acid supplementation were significantly associated with recovery time of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) (Table 7). Those children age from 24 to 35 months had 34% lower probability of recovery from SAM compared to 6–11 months old children (AHR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.35–0.89)
Children whose ages from 36 to 59 months had 47% lower probability of recovery from SAM compared to 6–11 months old children (AHR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.31–0.91)
Summary
In Ethiopia, the health sector has increased its efforts to enhance good nutritional practices through health education, treatment of extremely malnourished children and provision of micronutrients for mothers and children. Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is responsible for the death of 3.6 million under 5 years of old children and 140.5 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) of children in the same age groups. Severe acute malnutrition affects nearly 20 million pre-school age children, mostly in Sub-Saharan African and South East Asia region. Malnutrition is a significant factor in approximately one third of the nearly 8 million deaths in under 5 years of old children [2]. Malnutrition has a dramatic impact on childhood mortality still in Sub-Saharan African countries including Ethiopia [3]. Previous studies conducted in Ethiopia from Mekele city of Tigray [4] and University of Gondar Hospital [5] found that unacceptable high case fatality rate of 12.8 and 18.4% respectively
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
