Overcoming obstacles in taluk nutritional rehabilitation centres-baby steps

Sandhya Viswanathan; Alok M. Janardhan; Mahesh M. Shivanna

doi:10.18203/2349-3291.ijcp20242341

Authors

Sandhya Viswanathan Department of Paediatrics, Crawford General Hospital, Sakaleshpur, Hassan, Karnataka, India https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2817-6681
Alok M. Janardhan Department of Paediatrics, Shrinivasa Nursing Home, Sakaleshpur, Hassan, Karnataka, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6263-3853
Mahesh M. Shivanna Crawford General Hospital, Sakaleshpur, Hassan, Karnataka, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18203/2349-3291.ijcp20242341

Keywords:

Nutritional rehabilitation centre, NRC, Modified NRC, Taluk NRC, Day-care clinic, Acute malnutrition

Abstract

Background: While the effectiveness of nutrition rehabilitation centres (NRC) in combating severe and moderate malnutrition has been proven beyond doubt, their ability to reach out to all the target population is limited. The consensus of several studies is that NRCs are “under-utilized.” Hence, with a goal to improve utilization of NRCs, we aimed to set-up an assist system that may enhance the outreach of modified nutritional rehabilitation centre (mNRC)/taluk NRC) by enrolling more children within the existing ecosystem and thereby combat the malnourishment of under-5 children in the community.

Methods: A rural facility-based, longitudinal, rehabilitative, case control pilot study conducted over a period of 1 year from March 2023 to March 2024 in our mNRC, Crawford General Hospital, Sakaleshpur. Our study compared the results between 2 groups, the conventional admission group, and the day-care group. The outcome parameter of percentage weight gain was used as the control variable.

Results: The percentage weight gain assessed in our study showed that the weight gain in the day-care clinics was comparable to the admitted children with no statistically significant difference.

Conclusions: Day-care clinics are an effective, feasible, practical adjuvant to mNRC that may be established at taluk as well as community health centre levels. This novel Assist System can overcome the difficulty of poor bed occupancies in NRC and boost the compliance and hence improve the community outreach for nutritional rehabilitation manifold.

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