Treatment outcome from severe acute malnutrition among children 6 to 59 months admitted to Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Malnutrition continues to be a long-term year-round phenomenon, threatening under 5 children unacceptably the most. It is responsible for 25,000 children’s hospitalization per month and nearly 50% of all under-5 mortalities in Ethiopia. The national burden of SAM highlights the importance of addressing predictors of recovery rates.

Methodology: An institution-based retrospective cohort study was implemented from a period of August 2020- August 2021. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and entered and analyzed using SPSS 25. The output of both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was presented using an odd ratio and 95% CI. A p-value of less than 0.05 was taken as statistically significant.

Results: Among the total study cases of 241 children, 192(79.7%) records were recovered, 15(6.2%) died, and 20(8.3%) were defaulted. The majority of the children, 155(64.3%) had non-edematous malnutrition. The independent predictors of mortality were pneumonia (AOR=6.57), hypovolemic shock (AOR=0.05), presence of both pneumonia and gastroenteritis (AOR=4,463), getting third-line antibiotics (AOR=0.23), fourth-line antibiotics (AOR=0.15) and hospital stay more than 28 days (AOR=0.12).

Conclusion: The finding of this study attested that recovery and death rates are within the national standard. As many of the death occurred within the first week of admission, due attention should be given to SAM patients from the first minutes of arrival. Reduction in length of the hospital stays, and early recognition and management of complications have been unveiled to further upgrade the recovery rate.