Recovery rate and its predictors among children with severe acute malnutrition in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: A retrospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION: Malnutrition is a public health problem in under-five children in several parts of the world even after decades of the implementation of management protocols. An estimated 17 million children under the age of five years are living with severe acute malnutrition and the majorities are found in Asia and Africa, including Ethiopia. OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to determine the recovery rate and its predictors among under-five children who were admitted to St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College from 2012 to 2019. METHODS: An institution based retrospective cohort study was employed at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College from May 20, 2019 to June 28, 2019. Data were collected by reviewing children’s’ medical records using a structured checklist. A total of 534 charts were selected using a simple random sampling method and 515 of them were used for the final analysis. Ep-info version 7 software was used for data entry and STATA Version 15 for analysis. The Kaplan Meier failure estimate with Log-rank test was used to determine the survival estimates. Bi-variable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model were fitted to identify predictors of mortality. Finally, variables with p-values less than 0.05 in the multivariable Cox regression were considered as independent predictors. The proportional hazards assumption was checked using the Schoenfeld residuals test and the final model fitness was checked using the Cox-Snail residual test. RESULT: In this study, a total of 515 subjects were followed for 8672 child–days and 79% of the subjects recovered from SAM with the median time of 17 days. The incidence density rate of recovery was 46 per 1000 child-days. Tuberculosis (AHR(Adjusted Hazard Ratio) 0.44 & 95% CI: 0.32, 0.62), pale conjunctiva (AHR,0.67 & 95% CI: 0.52, 0.88), IV fluid infusion (AHR, 0.71 & 95 CI: 0.51, 0.98), feeding F100 (AHR, 1.63 & 95% CI:1.04,2.54), Vitamin A supplementation (AHR, 1.3 & 95% CI:1.07, 1.59) and bottle feeding (AHR, 0.79 & 95CI%: 0.64–0.98) were the independent predictors of time to recovery from SAM. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the recovery rate was relatively higher than the Sphere standard and the national SAM management protocol. Co-morbidities and the treatments given were the main determinants of recovery of children. Co-morbidities must be managed as early as possible and the treatments given during the SAM management process need to be given with precaution.