Review of the management of severely malnourished children at the maternal and child health hospital in Kumasi, in relation to the WHO Protocol
Loading...
Date
2004-11-24
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study was done in the Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Kumasi, Ashanti Region of Ghana. The aim of this study was to review the management of the severely malnourished children, in line with the WHO protocol, who were brought to the hospital.
In order to address the objectives of the research, data was collected using existing recorded information on the changes in weight of the children during their management, semi-structured interviews of mothers/caregivers as well as health providers and observation of the facility in order to determine whether it was conducive for the management of the severely malnourished children. The research work took place between the period of July 26 and October 16, 2004. A purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the respondents for the study. The sample for the study consisted of 34 severely malnourished children and their mothers/caregivers and 8 health providers.
Impediments affecting the effective management of severely malnourished children identified were inadequate nutritional care practices of the mothers/caregivers such as exclusive breastfeeding, feeding children weaning foods only, insufficient night feeds, lack of supervision during feeding, and interference.
The inadequate nutritional/care practices of health providers that were impediments to management of severely malnourished children identified included their lack of checking for hypoglycemia, lack of supervised feeding, failure to follow the WHO protocol on prevention/treatment of hypoglycemia, hypothermia, dehydration, correction of electrolyte imbalance and micronutrient deficiencies. The recovery rate determined through monitoring of the changes in the weight of the severely malnourished children was generally appropriate.
Observations showed that the facility provided a congenial environment for managing the severely malnourished children.
It is recommended that health providers of the Maternal and Child Health Hospital should adhere strictly to the WHO protocol for the management of severely malnourished children. Also management of the Maternal and Child Health Hospital should hold meetings quarterly on the job refresher training for the health providers on the WHO protocol on the management of severely malnourished children and the need to adhere to it, and the Ghana Health Service/Ministry of Health should develop its own protocol/guidelines for the management of severely malnourished children, taking into consideration peculiar characteristics of the local environment.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Community Health, School of Medical Sciences, College of Health Sciences
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the award of MSc.degree in Health Services Planning and Management, 2004