Prevalence of Malnutrition among Hospitalized Children

Malnutrition is the most wide spread condition affecting the health of children. Scarcity of suitable food, lack of purchasing power of the family as well as traditional beliefs and taboos about what the baby should eat often lead to insufficient balanced diet, resulting in deficiency disorders and malnutrition. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 60% of all deaths, occurring among children aged less than five years in developing countries, could be attributed to malnutrition. PEM is also associated with a number of co-morbidities such as lower respiratory tract infections including tuberculosis, diarrhoea diseases, malaria and anaemia. Hence, the present study investigated about the prevalence of malnutrition among hospitalized children and it was found that 54.4% of the samples were suffering from Grade I malnutrition, 23.3% of samples were in Grade II malnutrition, and only 10% of the samples were suffering Grade III malnutrition. Of the total samples 12.2% of them belong to normal. Association between selected demographic variables with malnutrition was determined and it was found that only age and income of the family had the association with malnutrition at 0.05 level of significance.