Nutritional Status of Hospitalized Children with Nutritional Anaemia: A Cross Sectional Study

Objective: To assess the nutritional status of hospitalized children diagnosed to have nutritional anaemia in Pakistan. Study Design: Analytical study. Place and Duration: From June 2009 and June 2010 at the Children Hospital, Islamabad. Materials and Methods: The current study was undertaken Admitted nutritional anaemic children were enrolled and anthropometric measurement (height and weight) and haemoglobin levels were assessed. WHO standards were used to classify nutritional status and anaemia. SPSS version 20 software was used for data entry and analysis. Comparison between low haemoglobin levels (≤5 g/dl) and nutritional status was performed by using Student t and Chi-square tests. Levels of significant was considered at 5% (p=0.05). Results: A total of 116 children with nutritional anaemia were enrolled. The mean (±SD) age was 2.5 (± 2.9) years and 68 (58.6%) were male. The mean (±SD) haemoglobin value was 4.44 (± 1.56) g/dl. Seventy one (61.2%), 63 (54.3%) and 55 (47.4%) children were classified as stunted, underweight and wasted respectively. The mean scores of HAZ, WAZ and WHZ were significantly lower in children who had haemoglobin level of ≤5 gm/dl compared to those who had 5 gm/dl haemoglobin level at the time of admission. Conclusion: Children admitted with nutritional anaemia have very poor nutritional status. Majority of children are less than 2 years of age, presenting with nutritional anaemia and poor nutritional status in our study.