Muhammad Shahid, Seema Nighahe Mumtaz, Waqar Ahmed Khushk.
Socio-demographic and nutritional indicators of malnourished children - a cross sectional study in OPD of a public sector hospital Karachi.
Med Channel Jan ;11(1):37-9.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess the social, demographic and nutritional indicators of the children with malnutrition and to develop recommendations for improving the conditions affecting health of malnourished children. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at an. Out Patient Department (OPD) of National Institute of Child Health (NICH) Karachi. A Questionnaire containing 55 questions was filled with I50 mothers visiting the hospital with their malnourished child aged between one to four years. These children were visiting the hospital for at least the second time. RESULTS: It was found that 54.7% of the mothers were illiterate 18.7% of mothers were still breast feeding and 6% mothers breast fed their child for 2 years. Weaning was started at 4 months of age in 50% of the children. 85.3% of the women had more than one child and 42% had 7 to 10 family members. 92% of the women were not using family planning measures. 26.7% of the fathers were unemployed. 54% of the children were brought to hospital because of diarrhea and 29.3% for respiratory tract infection. Only 26.6% of the children were fully immunized. CONCLUSION: Large family size, too many children, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, repeated infections to the child like diarrhea and respiratory tract infection, lack of immunization, bottle feeding and improper type and time of food during weaning were few factors which caused malnutrition in children.

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