Evaluation of the effects of nutrition intervention measures on admitted children in nutritional rehabilitation center, Gulbarga, India

Abstract

Background: Children with severe acute malnutrition require immediate attention along with proper nutritional rehabilitation for which nutritional rehabilitation centers (NRC) has been established. Even with establishment of NRCs the proportion of severe acute malnutrition in community has not been reduced. Thus it is necessary to know the effect of nutritional interventions on children admitted to these centers. Present study was done to analyze the effect of nutritional interventions on the children admitted to nutritional rehabilitation centre by reviewing the anthropometric indicators. Methods:  A longitudinal observational study was done among the children admitted to NRC from January 2013 to June 2014. A predesigned and pre-tested proforma was used to collect the socio demographic information. Admitted children were observed to analyze the effects of interventional measures on select anthropometric indicators. The data collected was entered in Microsoft excel sheet and analyzed. Results: Majority of the admitted children (41.77%) was in 12-23 months age group. 88(51.76%) were females and 82(48.24%) were males. Overall mean weight at admission was 7.19±1.57 kgs; for males it was 7.23±1.54 kgs and for females it was 7.16±1.60 kgs. The overall mean weight at discharge is 7.94±1.77 kgs for males it was 8.01±1.82 kgs and for females it was 7.88±1.72 kgs. The average weight gain for the study group during their stay at the centre was 7.9±1.6 g/kg/day. The target weight was achieved only by 26% of admitted children. Conclusions:  Nutritional rehabilitation centers are effective in management of severe malnutrition. However improvements are necessary to ensure the full recovery of all children admitted.