Study of Nutritional Status Among Under Five Children Attending Out Patient Department at A Primary Care Rural Hospital, Bareilly(UP)

The problems of malnutrition among under five children can be used to determine the need for nutritional surveillance, nutritional care, or appropriate nutritional intervention programmes in a community. The Objectives of the study were to study the stunting, wasting and underweight in under five children and to find out bio social characteristics associated with malnutrition. A hospital based cross-sectional study was carried out to assess prevalence of stunting, wasting, underweight among under-five children at the field practice area hospital of Rural health training centre (RHTC),DhauraTanda, dept. of Community Medicine, SRMS Institute of medical sciences, Bareilly UP. Data was collected by predesigned, pre-tested questionnaires from July 2013 to September 2013. Children detailed history, sex &weight were recorded and length/height was measured using standard technique. The length /height and weight were plotted on WHO centiles curves. The malnutrition was graded according to WHO classification. Data analysis was done by using WHO Anthro and Epi Info software. Total study subjects age group 0-5 yrs were 516. Total malnutrition cases were 394 with a prevalence of 76.36%. Here malnutrition was more common in males than females. Author observed that 53.86% children were underweight, 43.22% children were stunted and 60.67% were wasted. Malnutrition was more prevalent in 1-5 age group children and was found statistically significant. In conclusion, high percentage of malnutrition was found in under five rural male children. Generally percentage of malnutrition increases, as age increases among under five rural children.