Malnutrition continuous to be a major public health problem in developing countries. It is the most important risk factor for the burden of diseases. The present study was undertaken to study the demographic details and clinical profile of the patients admitted to the malnutrition treatment centre of a P.B.M government hospital of Bikaner, Rajasthan. This was a cross-sectional study done in the malnutrition treatment centre of Bikaner hospital, Rajasthan state over a period of four months. It was carried out on 84 infants in the age group of 06 to 24 months with severe acute malnourished, diagnosed on the basis of WHO classification. Out of 84 subjects, more than half of the infants (53.57%) were belonged to the 6-12 months of age group. Majority of the infants (88.10%) were Hindus and maximum subjects were belonged to schedule caste. About 46.43 per cent of subjects were born with low birth weight. All the subjects were belonged to the low income group. Most of the mothers (82.14%) and fathers (55.52%) were illiterate. More than half of the subjects (59.52%) were not completely immunized. Maximum subjects were found to be severe underweight (78.5%), stunted (45.24%) and wasted (79.76%). majority of the subjects had occasional occurrence of cold & cough (50.00%), fever (51.19%) and diarrhoea (44.05%) respectively. Vomiting was noted to be rarely occurring (38.10%) in the majority of the subjects. The common co-morbidity found was dehydration (26.19%) and bronchopneumonia (21.43%) followed by pyrexia with anemia (17.86%), severe anemia (13.10%), SAM without medical complications (7.14%), measles (5.95%), tuberculosis (2.38%), dysentery (2.38%), cardiac disease (1.19%), lesion with multiple ulcer (1.19%) and HIV+ (1.19%). Timely identification and treatment of various co-morbidities is likely to break undernutrition cycle and to decrease mortality and improve outcome.

Keywords: Clinical Profile, Malnutrition, Malnutrition Treatment Centre, Co-morbidity.

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Dr Seema Singh

Ph.D, Department of food and Nutrition, Swami Keshwanand Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner, Rajasthan (India)