Evaluación del estado nutricional y prevalencia de anemias en niños y niñas menores de 5 años de la parroquia Achupallas, Comunidad Totoras cantón Alausi, 2012.

Abstract

The objective of this investigation is to know the nutritional condition and ferropenic-anemia prevalence in children under 5 years old in the Totoras community, parish of Achupallas. This is a cross-sectional non-experimental study. 50 children were evaluated nutritionally. Hemocue was used to evaluate hemoglobin by taking a capillary-blood sample. Data were tabulated with the Microsoft Excel and JMP5.1 programs. The resulted were as follows: 50% of the sample belongs to boys and the rest to girls. Three indicators were used to evaluate the nutritional condition: HEIGHT/ AGE indicator 94% chronic malnutrition and 6% average build, according to the WEIGHT/AGE indicator 76% is average build and the WEIGHT/HEIGHT indicator 78% is average. The malnutrition incidence using Waterlow scale reveals that 98% of children have malnutrition. The anemia prevalence was high, 16% slight anemia and 82% moderate anemia. It was determined that 66% of mothers did not finish elementary school, 32% of then have never gone to school, and 2% of them have gone to high school. It is important to implement educative programs to correct this fact. The hypothesis was confirmed with the results when relating the nutritional condition of children under 5 years old with the hemoglobin levels. Malnutrition and anemia are a multifactorial are a multifactorial problem, that is why, the treatment must be multidisciplinary and institutional.