Abstract

The study was aimed at assessing the factors that have contributed to the occurrence of malnutrition among children
below five years in the pediatric ward of Itojo Hospital, Ntungamo District, Uganda. A descriptive cross-sectional
study design was used where both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. This was used to get
information from 100 mothers’ records from Itojo Hospital of children diagnosed with malnutrition under the age
of five years from the Ntungamo district and simple random sampling was used. The study considered only mothers
who had children below 5 years of age and those of children with more than 5 years were not considered. The data
was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using Microsoft Excel to come up with graphs, pie charts and
tables. The study findings revealed that mothers’ age at birth has a great impact on the health of the child.
Malnutrition and stunting as the study indicates that 42% of the mothers with malnourished children were aged
between 25 – 29 years. Findings further indicate that the occupation of the mother had a great impact on the
malnutrition of the child as more than half 56% of the mothers with malnourished children were causal labourers
and 20% were peasants. The socio-economic status of the mothers/family was found to be the major factor
determining malnutrition in children. It was found that mothers who are educated with good jobs have much
knowledge about the nutrition of mothers during pregnancy, have good health-seeking behaviours and vice versa.
Cultural beliefs were also reported to have an impact on the malnutrition of the children as there are some foods
that mothers were not allowed to eat due to different perceptions which lead to malnutrition in mothers and giving
birth to malnourished children and some mothers still giving birth from homes by the help of the traditional birth
attendants (TBAs). Mothers’ sanitation was poor 18% had no toilets at home, and 21% never washed their hands
after visiting the toilet/latrines. 44% did not hands before feeding the baby. The study concluded by recommending
government and health workers should be sensitive people about the importance of immunization since it was found
that some people still have poor perceptions of immunization.