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["Doctor, the child does not eat": a motive for consultation]
J M Fernández Núñez1, C Sendín González, A Paulino Herrera
1Centro de Salud de Santa Amalia, Hospital del INSALUD de Mérida.
Objectives:
To find the incidence of "Doctor, the child's not eating" as a motive for requesting a consultation and to check whether there is an accompanying pathology and/or poor nutritional habits.
Design:
Descriptive, crossover study.
Setting:
Rural Health Centre, Santa Amalia (Badajoz).
Participants:
Family members with 148 children, attending on their own initiative and seeking care for "he/she's not eating" between August and October 1996.
Results:
148 of 1,244 consultations were for "he/she not eating" (incidence 11.89%). 52.02% of them were male. The age group which attended most was from 1 to 4 years old (48.64%), followed by 36 cases between 7 and 12 months (24.32%). We observed an accompanying pathology in 71 (41.98%), most frequently catarrh of the upper passages and urinary tract infection.
Conclusions:
The fact that one of every 12 consultations was because a child had lost his/her appetite had two main interpretations: it is a common occurrence which worries parents quite a lot; and many parents lack information about feeding their children, as to quantity and the ways of administering the food.