Publications

The study was aimed at assessing the factors that have contributed to the occurrence of malnutrition among childrenbelow five years in the pediatric ward of Itojo Hospital, Ntungamo District, Uganda. A descriptive cross-sectionalstudy design was used where both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. This was used to getinformation from 100 mothers’ records from Itojo Hospital of children diagnosed with malnutrition under the ageof five years from the Ntungamo district and simple random sampling was used. The study considered only motherswho had children below 5 years of age and those of children with more than 5 years were not considered. The datawas collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using Microsoft Excel to come up with graphs, pie charts andtables. The study findings revealed that mothers’ age at birth has a great impact on the health of the child.Malnutrition and stunting as the study indicates that 42% of the mothers with malnourished children were agedbetween 25 – 29 years. Findings further indicate that the occupation of the mother had a great impact on themalnutrition of the child as more than half 56% of the mothers with malnourished children were causal labourersand 20% were peasants. The socio-economic status of the mothers/family was found to be the major factordetermining malnutrition in children. It was found that mothers who are educated with good jobs have muchknowledge about the nutrition of mothers during pregnancy, have good health-seeking behaviours and vice versa.Cultural beliefs were also reported to have an impact on the malnutrition of the children as there are some foodsthat mothers were not allowed to eat due to different perceptions which lead to malnutrition in mothers and givingbirth to malnourished children and some mothers still giving birth from homes by the help of the traditional birthattendants (TBAs). Mothers’ sanitation was poor 18% had no toilets at home, and 21% never washed their handsafter visiting the toilet/latrines. 44% did not hands before feeding the baby. The study concluded by recommendinggovernment and health workers should be sensitive people about the importance of immunization since it was foundthat some people still have poor perceptions of immunization.