Maternal psychiatric morbidity and childhood malnutrition

Abstract

Objective: To determine maternal psychiatric morbidity and its relation with malnutrition in their children.
Methodology: It was a case control study conducted at Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit of Department of Pediatrics, Civil Hospital Karachi, Pakistan from March to September 2011. Samples included hundred children between 3 to 36 months of age. The number of cases and control were fifty each. Children with moderate and severe malnutrition according to WHO classification were included in the case group whereas controls were children of the same age group and normal weight, coming to the department with common illnesses like acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, during the same time period. Mothers of both groups were screened for a probable psychiatric morbidity using HADS;