Table 2.
Demographic and clinical characteristics of southern Mozambican children aged <5 years admitted to Manhiça District Hospital with severe malnutrition (from January 2001 to December 2010), compared with all other non-severely malnourished admissions in the same age group (mild and moderate malnutrition and non-malnourished)
| Severe malnutrition (n 2522) | Other admissions (n 14 321) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n | % | n | % | P | |||
| Demographic characteristics | |||||||
| Sex | |||||||
| Male | 1365 | 54 | 7920 | 55 | 0·272 | ||
| Age (months) | |||||||
| Mean | 20 | 21 | |||||
| sd | 11 | 15 | 0·007 | ||||
| Season | |||||||
| Rainy | 1573 | 62 | 8528 | 60 | 0·008 | ||
| Breast-feeding* | 803 | 61 | 4825 | 79 | <0·001 | ||
| Symptoms | |||||||
| Cough | 1836 | 73 | 9724 | 68 | <0·001 | ||
| Reported breathing problems | 608 | 24 | 3104 | 22 | 0·006 | ||
| Vomiting | 692 | 28 | 3355 | 23 | <0·001 | ||
| Convulsions | 107 | 4 | 1263 | 9 | <0·001 | ||
| Stop eating | 298 | 13 | 1212 | 9 | <0·001 | ||
| Stop drinking or suckling | 199 | 8 | 842 | 6 | <0·001 | ||
| Signs | |||||||
| Temperature (°C) | |||||||
| Mean | 37·7 | 38·0 | |||||
| sd | 1·3 | 1·3 | <0·001 | ||||
| Pallor (mucosal) | 518 | 21 | 2350 | 16 | <0·001 | ||
| Dehydration | 647 | 26 | 2174 | 15 | <0·001 | ||
| Oedema | 298 | 12 | 524 | 4 | <0·001 | ||
| Ear discharge | 110 | 4 | 374 | 3 | <0·001 | ||
| Liver palpable | 101 | 4 | 392 | 3 | 0·001 | ||
| Spleen palpable | 593 | 24 | 3768 | 26 | 0·003 | ||
| Prostration | 281 | 16 | 1231 | 14 | 0·021 | ||
| Deep coma (Blantyre coma score ⩽2) | 123 | 5 | 578 | 4 | 0·052 | ||
| Co-morbidities | |||||||
| Malaria parasitaemia | 1258 | 52 | 9080 | 65 | <0·001 | ||
| Pneumonia | 681 | 27 | 3282 | 23 | <0·001 | ||
| Bacteraemia | 261 | 12 | 785 | 7 | <0·001 | ||
| Acute diarrhoea | 784 | 31 | 2959 | 21 | <0·001 | ||
| Severe anaemia | 312 | 12 | 1390 | 10 | <0·001 | ||
| Hypoglycaemia | 133 | 6 | 534 | 4 | 0·034 | ||
| Oral candidiasis | 155 | 6 | 248 | 2 | <0·001 | ||
| Outcomes | |||||||
| Admission length (d), mean and IQR | 7 | 3–9 | 4 | 2–5 | <0·001 | ||
| Case fatality rate, n/N and %† | 162/2274 | 7·1 | 222/13 619 | 1·6 | <0·001 | ||
IQR, interquartile range.
*Denominators only include children aged <24 months.
†Denominators are different from total admitted patients in each group as they only include children with known outcome (absconded and transferred children excluded).