TITLE:
Severe Acute Malnutrition among Hospitalized Children, Aden, Yemen
AUTHORS:
Mohammed Ali Badi, Iman Ali Ba-Saddik
KEYWORDS:
Severe Acute Malnutrition, Marasmus, Kwashiorkor
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Epidemiology,
Vol.6 No.2,
May
13,
2016
ABSTRACT: Objective: Severe acute malnutrition (SAM)
is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality among children
under 5 years of age worldwide. The aim of this study was to find out the
prevalence of SAM among hospitalized children at Al-Wahda teaching hospital in
Aden, Yemen. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional hospital based study was
conducted on 622 hospitalized children (336 males and 286 females) below 6
years of age during 2012-2013. SAM was defined as a very low weight for height
(below-3 Z scores of the median WHO growth standards). Results: SAM was
diagnosed in 622 children with prevalence rate of 5.2% from total 11,941
admissions during 24 months period. A higher proportion of patients were
marasmus 586 (94.2%) and only 36 (5.8%) were kwashiorkor. Marasmus was common
in