Author(s)

Zabeen Choudhury^*, Mohammad Musa Meah, Aparup Kanti Das, Pranab Kumar Chowdhury, Dhiman Das

Department of Pediatrics, Chittagong Medical College, Chattogram, Bangladesh.

Introduction: Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is an important cause of death in children. Bangladesh has a huge burden of SAM in under-five children, but documentation of their protocolized management and outcome is not so frequent. Objective: Our aim was to identify the pattern of the nutritional outcome and growth monitoring of 0-59 months old children with severe acute malnutrition treated with identified medical complications where the presence or absence of edema is an important clinical factor. Methods: This was a facility-based retrospective observational study that was conducted in the Severe Acute Malnutrition block of Chittagong Medical College Hospital, Chittagong. Here, a total of 485 patients were admitted during the period from 2013 to 2017. Based on WHO & National guidelines, admission and discharge criteria were considered and determined. A structured and prescribed data format was prepared and data were collected from the hospital records. Daily clinical follow-ups and weight monitoring of the patients were also documented. Both descriptive and analytic analyses were executed. After Data collection, it was cleaned, edited, and stored in excel, epi-INFO, and analyzed by SPSS. P-value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: 54.84% of the admitted patients were cured and discharged during the study period. The mean age of the observed patients was 22.35 ± 15.8607 months. The majority of the patients came from rural areas and about 50% of them belonged to lower-middle-class families. The median weight gain of the children at SAM block during the clinical review was found to be moderate (7.35g/kg/day). About 2/3^rd of the admitted patients stayed in the hospital for two weeks. The mean duration of hospital stay (in days) of the patients with edema (15.64 ± SD 7.133 days) was higher than that of the patients without edema (9.47 ± SD 5.881 days). 4.3% of patients did not gain weight during their hospital stay, and overall 8.04% of patients died during this period. Conclusion: More than half of the admitted patients showed moderate to good weight gain during their hospital stay. Non-edematous patients started to gain weight early and their mean weight gain was also higher. A greater portion of patients who had edema was cured (117, 81.8%) but defaulter & death rates, where contributed to a significant overall outcome (188, 38.76%), were more in non-edematous patients.

Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), Nutritional Outcome, Growth Monitoring

Choudhury, Z. , Meah, M. , Das, A. , Chowdhury, P. and Das, D. (2022) Nutritional Outcome and Growth Monitoring in Under-Five Children of Severe Acute Malnutrition with and without Edema in Bangladesh: A Five-Year Retrospective Review of Facility-Based Inpatient Care. Open Journal of Pediatrics, 12, 633-646. doi: 10.4236/ojped.2022.124064.