Comparative study of stunting measurement in children using WHO procedure and Growth Length Mat in Ghana

OBJECTIVE: Height data is not useful immediately without further processing. The Growth Length Mat (Stunting Mat) was designed to stunting directly. However, the Mat has not been validated for use in Ghana. This study compared stunting measured with the Mat and stunting measured following the WHO recommended procedure. We sampled 163 children aged 6–24 months in the Bono region of Ghana. We also explored the acceptability and interpretability of the two procedures among mothers and healthcare givers. RESULTS: The prevalence of stunting was 3.7% and 11.7% using the Mat and WHO procedures respectively. The Growth Length Mat had very low sensitivity (21.0%) but high specificity (98.6%) of detecting stunting in children. However, in younger aged children, the Mat was more accurate in detecting stunting. Both healthcare workers and caregivers found it easy to interpret the stunting status of children using the Mat. We conclude that the Growth Length Mat was less sensitive at detecting child stunting compared to the current gold standard of measuring stunting in younger children. There are possibilities to improve the accuracy and utility of the Mat for measuring stunting in low-resource settings by re-designing the mat to be more age appropriate. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-022-06259-x.