Nutritional assessment and associated factors in children with congenital heart disease—Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: Worldwide, congenital heart disease is the principal heart disease in children and constitutes one of the major causes of infant mortality, particularly in developing countries. Infants and children with congenital heart disease exhibit a range of delays in weight gain and growth. In some instances, the delay can be relatively mild, whereas in other cases, cause the failure to thrive. OBJECTIVES: To determine the nutritional status and associated factors of pediatric patients with congenital heart disease. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A cross sectional analytical study conducted over a period of 6 months (Feb to Jul 2020). A total of 228 subjects with congenital heart disease who visited the cardiac center during the study period where included until the calculated sample size attained. Data is collected from patient’s card and their care giver. Data was then analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 25.0. Odds Ratio with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) was used to determine the effect of the independent variables on the outcome variable and P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of 228 children ranging from 3month to 17yrs of age with mean age of 4.7 years (SD = 3.8 years) were included in the study. Most of the subjects had acyanotic heart disease accounting for 87.7%. The overall prevalence of wasting, underweight and stunting were 41.3%, 49.1% and 43% respectively. Children with congenital heart disease and having pulmonary hypertension, were found more likely to develop wasting compared to those without pulmonary hypertension with an odds of 1.9 (95% CI: 1.0–3.4) and also have greater chance of stunting with an odds of 1.9 (95% CI: 1.0–3.4). Children 5 to 10 years of age were 2.3 times more likely to be underweight. CONCLUSION: Malnutrition is a major problem in pediatric patients with congenital heart disease. Pulmonary hypertension and older age are associated with increased risk of undernutrition.