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Observational Study
. 2019 Dec 10;19(1):317.
doi: 10.1186/s12883-019-1553-6.

Malnutrition is common in children with cerebral palsy in Saudi Arabia - a cross-sectional clinical observational study

Abdul Rahman Almuneef  1   2 , Ali Almajwal  3 , Iftikhar Alam  2 , Mahmoud Abulmeaty  2 , Bader Al Bader  1 , Mohamed Farouq Badr  2 , May Almuammar  2 , Suhail Razak  2
Affiliations
Observational Study

Malnutrition is common in children with cerebral palsy in Saudi Arabia - a cross-sectional clinical observational study

Abdul Rahman Almuneef et al. BMC Neurol. .

Abstract

Background: Cerebral palsy (CP) is considered as the main cause of severe physical impairment and malnutrition in children. This cross-sectional study intended to survey the nutritional status of children cerebral palsy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: We examined 74 children (age: 1-10 yrs) with CP, who attended Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Humanitarian City (SBAHC), Riyadh Saudi Arabia. Data on age, general demographics, nutritional status, and dietary intake were collected. A child was considered underweight, wasted, stunted or thin if the standard deviation scores for his/her weight for age, weight for height, height for age and body mass index for age were ≤ -2.0 standard deviation (SD) using WHO growth standards. Multivariable logistic regression identified the factors associated with nutritional indicators.

Results: More than half (56.4%) of the children with cerebral palsy were malnourished as they had z-score below <-2 SD in at least one of the four indicators. Thinness (50%) was the most common form of malnutrition, followed by underweight, stunting, and wasting. Arm anthropometrics gave similar results on the percent number of malnourished children. Factors that were independently associated with malnutrition with an adjusted OR (aOR) were as follow: age ≤ 5 yrs. (aOR: 4.29); presence of cognitive impairment (aOR: 4.13); presence of anemia (aOR: 3.41) and inadequate energy intake (aOR: 4.86) (p, for all trends <0.05).

Conclusion: Children with cerebral palsy of the current study have impaired growth and nutritional status as assessed by all four common nutritional status indicators. Further large-scale community-based studies for in-depth evaluation of nutritional status and growth patterns in children with CP are needed.

Keywords: Cerebral palsy; Dietary intake; Growth; Nutritional status; Saudi Arabia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Venn Diagram showing relationship between various nutritional indicators in the malnourished children. a underweight [weight-for-age z-score (WAZ)], thinness [BMI-for-age z-score (BAZ)], stunting [height-for-age z-score (HAZ)] in 2–12 year olds and (b) stunting [height-for-age z-score (HAZ)], wasting [weight-for-height z-score (WHZ)], and underweight [weight-for-age z-score (WAZ)] in 2–5 year olds. The overlap between the different indicators is illustrated. Regarding weight for age, the z-scores for 2 children were omitted because of outlier values. A further 2 children >10 years of age were not included in this calculation. Similarly, . Finally, with regard to weight-for-height z-score, only 74 children ≤5 years old were included in the calculation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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