Nutritional status of primary school children and their caregiver's knowledge on malnutrition in rural and urban communities of Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Nutritional imbalance is an underlying cause of 2.6million death annually and a third of child's death globally. This study assessed and compared the nutritional status of primary school children and their caregiver's knowledge on malnutrition in rural and urban communities of Ekiti State. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional comparative study carried out among 983 urban and rural primary school children in Ekiti State (495 in urban and 488 in rural) using interviewer-administered semi-structured questionnaire. A multi-stage sampling technique was used and data collected was analyzed using SPSS 23 with level of statistical significance set at p < 0.05. RESULTS: Underweight and stunting were relatively higher in rural (6.5% and 22.7% respectively) than in urban (6.3% and 19.4% respectively) and these differences are not statistically significant (p = 0.898, p = 0.197). However, wasting, overweight and obesity were higher in urban (12.7%, 6.1% and 7.7% respectively) than rural (11.5%, 3.7% and 7.5% respectively) but the difference is not statistically significant. (p = 0.242). Majority of the caregivers in both settings had good knowledge of malnutrition though higher in urban mothers (89.5%) with statistical significance than their rural counterparts (71.5%). However, there is no significant association between caregiver's knowledge and malnutrition in this study. Being in lower primary school class, relationship with caregiver, educational status of caregiver and occupation of caregiver were the common predictors of malnutrition among the school children in both community settings. CONCLUSION: Generally, the prevalence of malnutrition was high in both urban and rural primary school children in this study. However, while underweight and stunting were more prevalent among the children in the rural communities, wasting, overweight and obesity were more prevalent in the urban. The caregivers in both communities had good knowledge of malnutrition (better in the urban) but this is not good enough to bring a significant relationship with the occurrence of malnutrition in the children. Common predictors of malnutrition in both community settings are being in lower primary school class, relationship with caregiver, educational status of caregiver and occupation of caregiver. It is therefore recommended that regular continuous public enlightenment, nutritional education programmes and other programmes targeted at improving the economic power of the caregivers are measures that will improve the nutritional status of the primary school children.

Comparative assessment of health-related quality of life among hypertensive patients attending state and federal government teaching hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria.

Background: Hypertension is a serious health problem and it is one of the diseases that impair health-related quality of life. The central tenet of care should be to improve health-related quality of life and overall well-being and not just be limited to improving clinical outcomes. This study assesses and compares health-related quality of life and its predictors among hypertensive patients in two government hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Methods: This was a comparative cross-sectional study involving 440 hypertensive patients (220 in each group), recruited using a systematic sampling technique within the hospitals. Data on socio-demographic, economic and clinical characteristics including the cost of care for hypertension were collected from the patients. The WHOQoL-BREF questionnaire was used to assess health-related quality of life. Data were entered and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0. Results: All domains of health-related quality of life were better among patients in federal government teaching hospitals, however, only the physical (T = -7.932, p < 0.001) and overall (T = -2.783, p = 0.006) domains were of statistical significance. An inverse relationship between cost and health-related quality of life was found in the two hospitals (State: r = -0.224, p = 0.001; Federal: r = -0.378, p < 0.001). Identified predictors of health-related quality of life were age, locality of residence, income, number of complications, exercise and smoking in both hospitals. Other predictors were marital status, living arrangement, occupation, number of medications, and involvement in religious and spiritual activities among patients in the state government teaching hospital; household size, length of diagnosis, and indirect cost among patients in the federal government teaching hospital. Conclusion: There is a need to support hypertensive patients in the state government teaching hospitals to reduce the inequality of low health-related quality of life among them. Identified predictors should be taken into consideration when putting in place policies that will improve the health-related quality of life of these patients.