Prevalence of Wasting and Its Associated Factors of Children among 6-59 Months Age in Guto Gida District, Oromia Regional state, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: Nutrition is central pillar of human life and its request differ with respect to age, gender and during physiological changes such as complimentary feeding and child age. Ethiopia has a high prevalence of Acute and Chronic Malnutrition, with almost half of Ethiopian children chronically malnourished and one-in-ten children wasted. About 47% of children under-five are stunted, 11% are wasted and 38% are underweight. Acute malnutrition also known as wasting, it is characterized by a rapid deterioration in nutritional status over a short period. For children, it can be measured using the weight-for-height nutritional index or mid-upper arm circumference. There are different levels of severity of acute malnutrition: moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM). The recommended a revision of cut-off points to determine wasting are the following: SAM: MUAC < 110 mm for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM): MUAC > 115 and < 125 mm Cut-Off Value Normal ?125 mm.

A cross- sectional descriptive survey and measurements of MUAC was used to investigate Prevalence of wasting and Its Associated Factors among Children 6-59 Months of Age in Guto Gida District, Oromia, Ethiopia. Multistage random sampling technique was used and 359 children between 6-59 months aged were selected from 398 enrolled children to the study.  The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS for windows version (17.0) and EPI-6. Both bivairate and multiple logistic regressions were run to assess factors that were associated with the dependent variable at p< 0.05 and to control the confounders.

Objective: To determine the Prevalence of Wasting and Its Associated Factors Among 6-59 Months Age in Guto Gida District, Oromia, Ethiopia.

Method: A cross-sectional survey design was used to assess the Prevalence of Wasting and Its Associated Factors Among 6-59 Months Age in Guto Gida District, Oromia, Ethiopia from March to June 2013.

Results: During the study period, 398 children were enrolled and about 359 children were included in the final analysis. Associate factors taken to analyze wasting were Socio-economic status, Housing quality, Water quality, Children Healthy condition, Child characteristics, Maternal Caring and characteristics and Dietary history of child and mother. There was significant relationship between Socio-economic status, House and Water quality, Children Healthy condition, Child and caregivers characteristics, Maternal Care, dietary history of child and mother, household food intake, and public healthy practice and dependent one. Both biviarate and multivariate logistic analysis indicated that low birth weight, lack of balanced diet as of food pyramid and housing quality, water quality are some associate factors of wasting, stunting, and underweight.

With respect to age categories the study result shows 11.14% wasting for among 24-59months age and children 6-23months were 12.53% were wasted .About 27.5 % of children were severe stunted, 41.78% less than 65% median for height meaning that stunted children, the proportions of severely underweight and underweight children in this study area were 28.7% and 39.6%  respectively.

Conclusion: Depending on facts of the study, it can be concluded that; child wasting (acute   mal nutrition) problem is highly observed in Guto Gida District. When out puts of the result compare to that of standard the prevalence’s of wasting in the study area was the same but slightly excised EDHS, 2011 report. It can be concluded professional that most households in the study area were illiterate, had low income, consumed cereals and crops, had not get quality water, had low nutritional information, majority of children did not taken Rota viral vaccine(de-worming activities). Therefore, it is a time to tickle child undernourishment, which is a silent killer of the community.

Keywords: Prevalence, Wasting, associated factors, MUAC and Guto Gida District.