Treatment outcomes among children admitted stabilization centers in Eastern Ethiopia: retrospective study

There is improved access to Sever Acute Malnutrition management in Ethiopia; however, studies have revealed an alarming rate of defaulters' poor recovery and deaths, emphasizing the importance of researching to identify major causes. As a result, the goal of this research is to identify treatment outcome determinants and associated factors in severely malnourished children aged 6-59 months admitted to public hospitals in Eastern Ethiopia's stabilization centers.

This study used an institutional-based retrospective cohort study design with 712 children aged 6 to 59 months. Data was gathered using a Sever Acute Malnutrition registration logbook and patient charts. Participants were chosen at random from their respective healthcare facilities based on population proportion. Epi-data was entered and analyzed using STATA version 14. To identify associated factors, the Cox proportional hazard Ratio was calculated, and a p-value of 0.05 at the 95% confidence interval was considered statistically significant.

This study revealed that only 70.65% (95% CI = 67.19, 73.88) of the children were cured while 17.84% defaulted from the management and 5.90% died. Children who did not have tuberculosis (AHR = 1.58, 95%CI:1.04, 2.40), anemia (AHR = 1.31, 95% CI:1.03, 1.68), Kwash dermatosis (AHR = 1.41, 95%CI:1.04, 1.91), or on NG-tube (AHR = 1.71, 95%CI:1.41, 2.08) were more likely to be cured from SAM.

This study discovered that the cure rate is extremely low and the defaulter rate is extremely high. As a result, intervention modalities that address the identified factor are strongly recommended to accelerate the rate of recovery in Eastern Ethiopia.