Nutritional status of children under five years of age in Shire Indaselassie, North Ethiopia: Examining the prevalence and risk factors

Malnutrition among children under five years of age is a chronic problem in most regions of Ethiopia, including the study region (Tigray). This study estimated the prevalence and identified the key risk factors of malnutrition in children under five years of age in Shire Indaselassie Town, North Ethiopia. Data were collected from 316 children aged under five and their mothers using quantitative survey and standard WHO protocols, and subsequent analysis was made using Emergency Nutrition Assessment (ENA) and SPSS software packages. The study estimated the prevalence of malnutrition and investigated the effects of demographic, socioeconomic, child health and sanitary conditions, feeding and dietary variables on malnutrition: stunting (low height for age), underweight (low weight for age) and wasting (low weight-for-height) among under-five children. Logistic regression was used to identify the determinants of malnutrition in the study area. The result showed that 56.6% of the children under age five have chronic malnutrition, are underweight (20.9%) and wasting (4.1%) with a mean z-score of −2.2, −1.0 and 0.3, respectively (i.e. average deviation, from the healthy and well nourished standard reference children of the same age). Children's age, maternal education, maternal employment, child weight at birth, mothers’ body mass index and early initiation of breast feeding were the major factors associated with stunting among children. The main contributing factors of underweight among the children were found to be household size, marital status of mothers, decision on income allocation, contracting diarrhea two weeks preceding the survey, early initiation of breast feeding and bottle feeding. The study concluded that chronic malnutrition in the study area is still a major concern that needs timely intervention by governmental and non-governmental organizations.