Abstract:
Background: Severe Acute malnutrition is a type of malnutrition in which a person loses a
significant amount of weight in a short period of time, resulting in underweight or wasting. It is a
serious issue because it kills 3.5 million children under the age of five each year. In Ethiopia, 37% of
children are stunted, 21% are underweight, and 7% are wasted. It is, the most common reason for
admission to a pediatric unit and a leading cause of death in Ethiopia, with a mortality rate of 25% to
30%. This shows that children's malnutrition remains a major public health issue in Ethiopia.
Objective: This study was aimed to assess treatment outcomes of severe acute malnutrition and its
associated factors among 6-59 month children admitted at inpatient treatment of Ambo general
hospital and Ambo university referral hospital.
Methods: Hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted using secondary data on 362 children
aged 6-59 months who had been admitted since January 1, 2017 to January 1, 2022 for the
management of severe acute malnutrition at Ambo General Hospital and Ambo University Referral
Hospital. Systematic random sampling technique was used based on sequence of card numbers on
SAM registration log book. Structured checklists were used to collect data from severe acute
malnutrition registration logbook and cards of individual children then data were entered on to EpiData version 3.1 and then after exported to SPSS version 26 for analysis. Binary logistic regression
analysis model was used to identify factors associated with treatment outcomes. Adjusted odds ratio
(AOR) along with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was reported to measure the strength of
associations and p-value less than 0.05 was considered to declare presence of significant association.
Results: Among 362 admitted children to inpatient treatment for management of severe acute
malnutrition in the study 85.1% were recovered, 5% were defaulted, 6.1% were transferred out and
3.9% were died. Being female child (AOR=0.35; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.78), Age 12-24 months
(AOR=2.45; 95% CI: 1.06, 6.02), Urban residence (AOR=3.36; 95% CI: 1.48,7.62), Being newly
admitted (AOR=5.94; 95% CI: 2.01,7.52), Tuberculosis infections (AOR=0.16; 95% CI: 0.66,0.41),
being supplemented with folic acid (AOR=3.42; 95% CI: 1.56, 7.49), and F-100 (AOR= 3.04; 95% CI
(1.42, 6.51) were significant predictors of severe acute malnutrition treatment outcomes.
Conclusion: The proportion of treatment outcomes of SAM in the hospitals was in the acceptable
range. Administration of F-100 milk and folic acid were aided recovery of treatment outcome and
tuberculosis is comorbidities that hinder recovery outcome from severe acute malnutrition. Thus
