Risk Factors for Malnutrition Among Children Aged 6-59 Months Attending Sos Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia

Abstract

Malnutrition is a condition that arises from an inadequate or excessive intake of nutrients, an imbalanced consumption of essential nutrients, or a malfunction in nutrient utilization. It encompasses both under-nutrition and over-nutrition, which together constitute the dual burden of malnutrition. This burden includes non-communicable diseases that are associated with dietary factors. Fears of a repetition of the 2011 famine, which claimed 260,000 lives, roughly half of them were children under the age of five. Over 385,000 children in Somalia are at risk of dying without immediate care, and at least 1.5 million children under the age of five are critically malnourished nationwide. This study was carried out to determine risk factors associated with malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months attending SOS hospital in Mogadishu. A cross-sectional study was carried out at the SOS Hospital, in which 180 mother-child pairs were chosen through systematic random sampling. Data was entered into SPSS (version 20) and analyzed accordingly. The anthropometric measurements were analyzed using ENA for SMART, while the associations were estimated by means of the chi-square test (p<0.05). Majority (62%) of the study population were married while (32%) had no formal education, and nearly half of the households (44%) had more than five members in their households. Majority (58%) of the children had low dietary diversity that included less than 4 food groups in 24 hours before the date of interview. The prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight was 48.3%, 41.6% and 28.3%, respectively. Study findings shows that poor breastfeeding practices and lack dietary diversity are the risk factors for stunting of children (p-value=0.015), p-value=0.009, respectively). General nutrition status of children is poor with half in the study area wasted. Exclusively breastfeeding is not practiced in the study households and infection were the main cause of malnutrition in children. Inadequate diets in terms of quantity, quality and small amounts of vegetables are also common among the households. Most of the children admitted in hospital suffered fever and diarrhea. The study recommends educating mothers on child feeding practices, sanitation and importance of first milk to the child. The study suggests that stakeholders should focus on the above mentioned factors to fight against malnutrition and the study also recommends nutrition education programs should be initiated in the community.