Mortality, length of hospital stay, and nutritional status improvement in severely malnourished children with HIV infection in a tertiary center

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Abstract

Background Severe malnutrition contributes to child mortality
rates, especially in children under five HIV infection further increases the risk of death. Objective To evaluate the impact of HIV infection on mortality,
length of hospital stay and improvement of nutritional status in severely malnourished inpatients under five Methods This retrospective study included children aged less than 5 years and admitted to a terti ary hospital for severe malnutrition. We excluded those with incomplete data, as well as those
transferred to other hospitals or discharged against medical advice.
Outcome measures were live/death status, length of hospital stay and improvement of nutritional status (weight gain and improved
weight for height Z score). Results Of 104 eligible patients, 97 were included as study subjects. Their mean ages were 25.8 (SD 17.3) months for
HIY-infected children and 16.3 (SD 15.3) months for HIYuninfected children. Death occurred in 31.8% and 18.7% of HIV infected and uninfected subjects, respectively. Median length of hospital stay was 14.5 (range 5-51) days and 11
(range 1-99) days, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in between the two groups. Weight-or-height Z scores (WHZ) on admission and discharge in HIV-infected children were lower than those of uninfected children, but the weight gain (median weight gain of 0.45 (-0.26 to 1.9) kg vs 0.38 (-0.81 to 2.2) kg in HIV-infected and uninfected children, respectively) and improvement of WHZ [1 (SD 1.1) vs 0.9 (SD 1), respectively]
were similar. Conclusion Severely malnourished children with HIV infection had higher mortality rate, and longer hospitalizations than the uninfected group, although the differences were not statistically significant. They also had lower mean WHZ scores at admission and discharge, but nutritional improvement was similar to those who were HIV-negative.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)362-366
JournalPaediatrica Indonesiana
Volume52
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2012

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