International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development

Nutritional status is a condition of the body influenced by the diet, the levels of nutrients in the body and ability of those levels to maintain normal metabolic integrity. Normal nutritional status among individuals is managed by the balance of food consumption and normal utilization of nutrients. The purpose of the study was to determine the nutrition status of children under five years of age attending nutrition clinics at Masaka regional hospital in order to inform intervention prioritizing. A cross-sectional survey with a retrospective component that used both qualitative and quantitative research methods was employed. A total number of 505 children were targeted for the study, however, on a sample of 344 children aged under five were selected using Kish and Leslie (1965) and a simple random sampling was done to select children aged under five focusing more of those between 6-59 months Katwe-Butego attending nutrition clinic at Masaka regional hospital. Semi-structured questionnaires and key informant interview guides were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from mothers/caretakers and key informants respectively. Data was collected with the Epicollect5 software and was downloaded and saved onto the computer. The anthropometric measurements were computed using WHO Anthro plus 2009 software to determine z-scores and percentiles which were compared with WHO (2006) child growth standards to establish nutritional status of children. Thematic analysis was adopted to analyses qualitative data. Factors associated with nutritional status of children were established using multiple Poisson regression. Results showed the prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight was 11.6%, 32.6% and 16.3% (n=344) respectively. The overall nutritional status of children was 42.73% (n=344). Religion and tribe of mothers/caretakers, stopping period for breastfeeding and child death history in households were significantly associated with the nutritional status of children aged 6-59 months. The IYCF practices were exclusive breast feeding, supplementary, dietary diversification and early weaning. The study recommends that, the religious gatherings and tribal meetings should be used as avenues for giving nutrition education and health education by health workers in order to promote the good nutritional status of children.