Publications

Globally, approximately 151 million children under 5 suffer from stunting and in 2017, nearly 51 million childrenunder 5 were wasted. In Uganda, child malnutrition is one of the most serious public health problems and amongthe highest in the world with about 28.9% stunted and 3.6 % wasted in 2015. Therefore, the purpose of this studywas to identify prevalence of malnutrition and determine the associated factors that influence malnutrition amongchildren under the age of 5 years among children attending MRRH. A hospital based cross-sectional descriptivestudy was conducted on 113 respondents. Data collection was done using a pretested questionnaire and theEmergency Nutrition Assessment software version 2015 was used to generate z-scores and the Weight for HeightZ-scores (WHZ) were generated using WHO 2005 Growth Standards. The data was then exported to IBM SPSSversion 25 for analysis. The age of children in this study ranged from 6 to 59 months with mean age of 22.3 ±14.2(Std. deviation) months. Majority of the children were females (60.2%, n=68). Factors significantly associated withmalnutrition in this study was: low birth weight (X2=33.64, P=<0.001), positive history of infectious disease in thetwo weeks preceding the study (X2=12.67, P=<0.001), and low socioeconomic status (X2=25.45, P=<0.001). Theprevalence was 31.9%, of which 25 (58%) were wasted and 18 (42%) were stunted. Malnutrition still remain aherculean challenge in Uganda and the rest of Africa. While there are some reduction of global prevalence ofmalnutrition from 1999 to 2015, however, there is a disparity as African countries like Uganda still have increasedprevalence of this condition. The major factors influencing Malnutrition among children attending the MRRH arelow birth weight of, history of infectious diseases, and low socioeconomic status of the parents/caretakers. Andthere was a significant prevalence of malnutrition of 31.9%. The Mubende district health Team should work inconjunction with the ministry of health to carry out more sensitization regarding nutrition of children with a specialfocus on supporting people of low socio- economic status (peasants), promoting education on child feeding andnutrition and prevention of common illnesses associated with children with malnutrition.