Systematic Reviews of Prevalence and Associated Factors of Under Five Malnutrition in Ethiopia: Finding the Evidence

Abstract

Abstract:Background: Globally, 165 million children are stunted. Currently in Ethiopia, 14 %, 9%, and 25% of children are stunted, wasted and underweight respectively. This paper is intended to provide compressive and up to date evidence on the prevalence and investigate the associated factors of Malnutrition in Ethiopia from January, 2000 to May, 2015. Methods: A quantitative epidemiological systematic literature review was conducted by searching different published articles in different data bases which is written in English including MEDLINE, PubMed, Google scholar, Cochrane and grey literatures. The search was restricted to population based studies on malnutrition in Ethiopia published between January 2000 and May 2015. All data were extracted independently by a single reviewer using a standardized protocol and data collection form. Eleven publications met the inclusion criteria. The total pooled data were eleven surveys involving over 7,959 participants. Results: The reported rate of malnutrition is varied widely; the highest rate of under nutrition, stunting and wasting was 49.2, 57.1 and 42.3 respectively and the lowest rate of under nutrition, stunting and wasting was 8.9,24, 4.1 respectively. This variation could be due to seasonal variation; differences in participants mean ages, source population and study settings. This review found a high prevalence of malnutrition both in urban and rural residents and different associated factors including age, sex, prelactal feeding, malaria, deprivation of colostrum and other 17other associated factors. Conclusion and recommendation: Under five malnutrition was considerably prevalent in Ethiopia. Further investigation is important for other vulnerable groups like lactating women, school children, people with different chronic non communicable diseases and older age groups. Primary prevention tailored to provide education on weaning practice, early initiation of breast feeding, family planning, prevention of malaria and diarrhea, health education about fruits and vegetables and malnutrition screening in primary health care context would be of immense value. Further Meta-analysis study is also recommended.

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“…This study also indicated lower prevalence of undernutrition among children than a number of studies conducted in different parts of the country [2, 8, 12–15]. This lower prevalence of undernutrition could be attributed to that the study area is green and different fruits and vegetables that are rich with different nutrients are harvested in the area.…”

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