Khattak Umme K, Iqbal Saima P, Ghazanfar Haider
Community and Family Medicine, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Department of Internal Medicine, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Cureus. 2017 Jun 5;9(6):e1316. doi: 10.7759/cureus.1316.
According to a recent survey, Pakistan was ranked as the third highest country with malnutrition and the under-five child mortality. No realistic solution for this growing problem has been found despite the fact that the struggle to tackle the issue of malnutrition among young Pakistani children has been going on for the last several decades. The objective of our study was to look into the relationship between parental education and malnutrition in Pakistan and to make a recommendation to improve the nutritional condition of the children.
We carried a case-control study among 400 mothers from February 2016 to July 2016 in a primary health care center located in a peri-urban community in Pakistan. A self-constructed questionnaire comprising of 75 questions was used to collect the data.
The mean age of mother was found to be 27.61 ± 5.130. The majority of the mothers were uneducated 168 (42.0%) while only 116 (29.0%) fathers were uneducated. About 226 (56.5%) of the children had a normal nutritional status while 102 (25.5%) had first-degree malnutrition, 52 (13.0%) had second-degree malnutrition, and 20 (5.0%) had a third-degree malnutrition. Higher paternal educational status (p = 0.008) and maternal educational status (p = 0.011) were found to be significantly associated with normal child nutritional status.
It is recommended that the education of parents, especially females, in the rural and semi-urban areas should be promoted and given due importance. The focus of all these programs should be the mother in terms of security, employment, literacy, justice, healthcare, food, shelter, and social equality.
根据最近的一项调查，巴基斯坦在营养不良和五岁以下儿童死亡率方面位列第三高的国家。尽管在过去几十年里一直在努力解决巴基斯坦幼儿营养不良问题，但尚未找到针对这一日益严重问题的切实可行的解决方案。我们研究的目的是探究巴基斯坦父母教育与营养不良之间的关系，并提出改善儿童营养状况的建议。
2016年2月至2016年7月，我们在巴基斯坦一个城郊社区的初级卫生保健中心对400名母亲进行了病例对照研究。使用一份由75个问题组成的自行编制的问卷来收集数据。
母亲的平均年龄为27.61±5.130。大多数母亲未受过教育，有168人（42.0%），而只有116名父亲（29.0%）未受过教育。约226名（56.5%）儿童营养状况正常，102名（25.5%）有一度营养不良，52名（13.0%）有二度营养不良，20名（5.0%）有三度营养不良。较高的父亲教育水平（p = 0.008）和母亲教育水平（p = 0.011）被发现与儿童正常营养状况显著相关。
建议促进农村和半城市地区父母尤其是女性的教育，并给予应有的重视。所有这些项目应在安全、就业、识字、司法、医疗保健、食品、住房和社会平等方面以母亲为重点。
