Faisal Raza Malik, Muhammad Tahir, Zafar Ullah Kundi.
Risk factors for malnutrition in an urban slum.
Ann Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;2(4):265-8.

Objective: To determine the risk factors for malnutrition among children presenting in out patient department of Railway Hospital, IIMCT, Rawalpindi. This Descriptive study was conducted at the Department of Paediatrics, Railway Hospital Rawalpindi, from 1st February, 2004 to 31st July 2004. Materials & Methods: The sample size was 500 patients and technique was non-probability convenient sampling. Objectives were assessed with proforma and data was analyzed with SPSS 10.0 Results: Children were of the age ranging from 2 months to 12 years, out of which 60% were female and 40% were male. Social risk factors were present in 35.8% ot children, Medical/nutritional factors were present in 51.2% of children and both factors were present in 13% of children. Most significant factors were bottle feeding (present in 70% of children), followed by large family size (39% of cases with > 2 children and 29% of cases with >5 children), delayed/early weaning (36%; 27.6% - delayed weaning, 8.4% early weaning), uneducated mothers (23.2%), lack of immunization (23%), history of measles (20%), LBW (2.2%), and prematurity (10.4%). Conclusions: Nutritional factors are the major contributing factors towards malnutrition, the most important factor being lack of exclusive breast feeding, delayed or inadequate weaning, lack of immunization, low birth weight and in social factors lack of parental education especially maternal, and large family size.

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