Objectives: To estimate frequency of stunting and associated factors in children aged less than five years in a tertiary care hospital of Lahore. Methods: An Analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in Pediatrics Outpatient Department at Akhtar Saeed Trust Teaching Hospital, Lahore from December 2017 to July 2018. Two hundred children of ages under five years coming to outdoor for treatment of minor ailments were included after informed consent from their parents. Non-probability, convenient sampling technique was used to collect sample. Data collected and analyzed on SPSS version 19. To find out association of stunting with multiple qualitative variables, chi-square test was applied and p-value was fixed at ≤ 0.05 to be significant. Results: Out of 200 children screened in OPD, 42 (21.0%) were found to be stunted. The total percentage of stunting in male children was 28 (66.6%) and in female children were 14 (33.3%). Stunting was significantly associate with male gender (p=0.047), joint family system (p=0.049), low literacy level in mothers (p=0.031), unvaccinated status (p=0.003) and history of bottle feeding (p=0.037). Conclusion: The frequency of stunting in children less than five years of age is 42 (21.0%). The significant risk factors associated with stunting were found as male gender (p= 0.047), joint family system (p=0.049), low maternal education (p=0.031), unvaccinated status (p=0.03). doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1370 How to cite this:Fatima S, Manzoor I, Joya AM, Arif S, Qayyum S. Stunting and associated factors in children of less than five years: A hospital-based study. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(3):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1370 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background: Diarrhea is the second major cause of mortality in children worldwide. Timely interventions by caregivers who are mainly mothers, can contribute towards a favorable prognosis of this condition in children. Aim: The purpose of conducting this study was to assess maternal knowledge and the practices regarding prevention of diarrheal diseases in children under the age of 5 years. Setting: This study was carried out in three hospitals at Lahore, Pakistan. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted from January to July 2020 and a convenience sampling technique was used for data collection. Data was collected from 158 mothers of children under 5 years of age by using a self-structured, pre-tested questionnaire. Chi square test was applied and p-value <0.05 was taken as significant. Results: A total of 158 mothers responded to the study questionnaire; mean age of the participants was 28.4+ 7.6 years, 22.8% were illiterate, 84.2% were housewives, and 37.4% had income more than 31000 rupees/month. The majority (43.1%) had ‘poor’ knowledge, 24% had’ poor’ attitudes and practices while 12% had better practices. Significant associations were observed between mother’s knowledge with education (p-value=0.004), income (p-value=0.001), frequency of diarrhea in a child (p-value=0.053) and practices with education (p-value =0.039). Conclusion: This study showed the direct relationship between mother's literacy level and family income with better knowledge and feeding practices of children regarding prevention of diarrhea. It has highlighted the role of mothers in the management of acute diarrheal diseases.