The association between nutritional status and risk of developmental disorder in children in Denpasar Bali Indonesia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Preschool age is an important period for growth and development. Malnutrition that occurs during this period can have negative impacts on growth, cognitive development, and academic performance in children. AIM: The objective of the study is to know the association between nutritional status and the risk of developmental disorder in preschool children in Denpasar. METHODS: An observational analytic study with a cross-sectional design and cluster sampling method was conducted on children under 5 years old who attended Early Childhood Education in Denpasar Bali in 2019. RESULTS: From 468 samples, the median age was 5 years old (range, 1–5), the majority of children were well-nourished (52.6%), and caretaken by parents (82.9%). Child development was prescreened using an Indonesian child development pre-screening questionnaire/Kuesioner Pra Skrining Perkembangan (KPSP) that had 75% sensitivity, 99.16% specificity, 85.71% positive predictive value,and 98.33% negative predictive value compared to Capute Scale test as a gold standard. It showed that the majority of participants had an appropriate developmental stage (91.3%), followed by doubtful (5.3%) and possible deviations (3.4%). The results of the bivariate analysis showed that malnutrition was significantly related to the risk of developmental delay (PR 2; confidence interval [CI] 95%, 1.05-3.97). The result of multivariate analysis for variables that were considered to be significant as a risk for developmental disorder showed that malnutrition was related to the possibility of developmental disorder (PR 2; CI 95%, 1.04–3.95). Caretakers other than parents and lack of physical activity were not significantly related to the risk of developmental disorder. CONCLUSION: Malnutrition was found to be significantly associated with the risk of developmental disorder in preschool children. Further prospective study by standard assessment tools is required to evaluate the association between nutritional status and developmental level in children.