International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | August 2018 | Vol 5 | Issue 8 Page 3492 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Sekhar CC et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2018 Aug;5(8):3492-3495 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article A study on assessment of nutrition and health status of the children one year after discharge from the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre in South India C. Chandra Sekhar, D. Surendra Babu*, C. Sravana Deepthi, Shakeer Kahn Patan, Khadervali N., Bayapa Reddy N. INTRODUCTION Nutrition rehabilitation centre (NRC) is a unit in a health facility where children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) are admitted and managed. Children are admitted as per the defined admission criteria and provided with medical and nutritional therapeutic care. 1 Childhood under-nutrition is an important public health and development challenge in India. Children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) have nine times higher risk of dying than well-nourished children. 2 The National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) revealed that 6.4% in India and 4.5 percent of under-five years of age are severely wasted in Andhra Pradesh. 3 With appropriate nutritional and clinical management, many of the deaths due to severe wasting can be prevented. Follow-up of children ABSTRACT Background: Nutrition rehabilitation centers (NRCs) were started to control severe malnutrition and follow-up of children with severe acute malnutrition is essential because mortality rate of 10-30% has been reported after discharge from hospital. Methods: A community based cross sectional study with the objectives to assess the current health status of the children discharged from the NRC and to assess the healthy practices learned by mothers during their stay at NRC. We included children those discharged from May to October 2013. The children were approached house to house visit and assessed for their health status with a pretested semi structured questionnaire. Mothers of the children were also interviewed for the knowledge and practices of the dietary and child care. Results: Among 67 children, 8 (11.9%) children could not be traced and 7 (10.4%) were reported dead, 52 were included 27 were boys and 25 were girls with a mean age of 35 months. The current nutritional status was 71.2% were not in very low weight, 17.3% were moderately underweight, and 11.5% were still severely underweight. Children who had more number of follow-ups had a better nutritional status which was significant (p<0.0001). 94% of the mothers had knowledge about correct feeding practices and food preparations; 86.5% were aware of good hygiene; 75% aware of the danger signs. Only 59.5% of the mothers could recollect the structured play therapy. Conclusions: Community based followup of the children following discharge from NRC and appropriate feedback to the mothers is very much essential for sustained results. Keywords: Severe acute malnutrition, Nutritional rehabilitation centres, Underweight Department of Community Medicine, Apollo Institute Medical Sciences and Research, Murukambattu, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India Received: 14 May 2018 Revised: 26 June 2018 Accepted: 27 June 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. D. Surendra Babu, E-mail: surya.doc.2@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20183086