Environmental risk factors in outpatient recovery from malnutrition

Studies evaluating Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres indicate that they hold several advantages over alternative methods of care for malnourished children. Nonetheless, an important minority of outpatient cases attending such centres does not make adequate progress, and this has been attributed to shortcomings in their home environment.

A survey in Uganda showed that different features of the home environment affected progress for urban and rural outpatients. The findings also suggest that for both groups the child's home situation can indeed be used to explain his progress, with eight variables explaining around 70 percent of the variance in recovery scores. These variables describe the size of the child's family, the level of food resources available, and the amount of help his mother can martial in caring for him.

Information on these predictors of recovery could be recorded in the case notes on the child's first attendance at the clinic, thereby providing an initial estimate of the risk that he will not respond adequately to the outpatient treatment, requiring, instead, more intensive care.